The Shenzhen-based company didn't provide any financial details of the deal. It also didn't say when the network would be completed.

ZTE said the network would provide next-generation networking technology, which allows analog services like traditional fixed-line voice calls to be carried on the same network as digital signals such as mobile telecom traffic. It would be among the first of its kind in Africa, the company said.

The new technology has low construction costs and complete network coverage, which will make it particularly appropriate for Angola, according to the company.

ZTE said it had also been given next-generation networking contracts in Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

ZTE, which lists shares in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, is China's second-biggest telecom equipment vendor after crosstown rival Huawei Technologies Co.

Sales of its handsets, base stations, switches, software, and broadband networking gear grew 35 percent to US$4.1 billion last year. Profits jumped 50 percent, to an estimated US$186 million, according to brokerage DBS Vickers Securities. And exports soared 170 percent, to US$1.6 billion. ZTE President Yin Yimin says he wants overseas sales to account for more than half of revenues as soon as next year.

In early 2004, the Export-Import Bank of China granted US$600 million export financing to Huawei and US$500 million to ZTE. The money would be used to finance sales of their equipment to overseas operators.

(Shenzhen Daily July 28, 2005)