Viettel to invest about $300 million in Haiti

Viettel will invest approximately $300 million in Haiti market. The corporation is currently completing the very last steps of the survey.

This information was given to VnEconomy by Tong Viet Trung, deputy general director of Military Telecoms Group (Viettel) on the sidelines of the ceremony in which Viettel received license to be provider of digital signature certification service on 22 June.

Viettel has been focusing on cooperation and overall design of the infrastructure system, and upgrading fixed telephone network to quickly put into service in Haiti.

For mobile network, Trung mentioned that it has to be three or four more months for Viettel to start developing the mobile infrastructure.
Viettel expects to officially provide mobile telecommunications services in Haiti in the first quarter 2011.

Viettel plans to build over 1,000 base transceiver stations (BTS) in Haiti, a similarly number as in Cambodia. Total investment capital is estimated about 300 million US dollars.

The catastrophic earthquake in Haiti in mid January 2009 did not cause damages to Viettel’s investment in the country, since the group had not begun developing infrastructure at that time, said Trung.

According to Trung’s analyses, Haiti is still a promising market as penetration rate of mobile telecommunications sector is very low, from 15 to 20 percent and there are only two mobile network providers in the market.

Viettel previously signed an agreement to invest in state-owned telecommunications company, which is Telecommunications d’Haiti (Teleco) with total capital of 99 million dollars, accounting for 60 percent stake of Teleco’s telecommunications segment in Haiti.

With this agreement, Viettel is having license and complete frequency band to provide full spectrum of services including fixed landline, fixed wireless, international undersea optical cable, and WiMAX wireless broadband and mobile telecommunications.

Tags: Viettel, Viettel in Haiti