A news story has spread through the market yesterday that China Railcom will be taken over by China Mobile and China Unicom will merge with Netcom, in a sweeping reshuffle of the country's telecom industry.

Authorities have not confirmed the news.

It is said that Unicom will be placed in a leading position in its merger with Netcom, but China Telecom will acquire its CDMA business.

Yan Ping, an analyst at Haitong Securities, deemed the scheme feasible.

Zhao Hong, an analyst at Sinolink Securities, said: "It must be in the market grapevine. We have learned through well-informed sources that the telecom restructuring may happen sometime after this year's NPC and CPPCC session scheduled for March."

However, according to UBS Securities, the restructure is unlikely within the upcoming 6 months and may even be postponed until 2009.

For more details, please read the full story in Chinese (http://www.cs.com.cn/xwzx/05/200801/t20080111_1345286.htm).

(China.org.cn January 11, 2007)