The concession agreement for Viettel was signed Friday for operation to start in 12 months.
Government has officially engaged a third mobile operator to go functional in the country. The concession agreement for Viettel Cameroun Sarl, branch of Vietnam’s Viettel Group was signed in Yaounde last Friday December 14 with a fervent call for the outfit to join already functional companies like MTN and Orange in providing Cameroonians all over the country with the best of telephone services at affordable rates. Posts and Telecommunications Minister, Jean-Pierre Biyiti-bi Essam and his colleague of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey, signed for Cameroon while the General Manager of Viettel Cameroun Sarl, Tran Hoang Anh, signed for his company. This was in the presence of the Minister Delegate at the Presidency in charge of Public Contracts, Abba Sadou, and Viettel’s Director of Foreign Investment, Nguyen Duc Quang, among others.
Minister Biyiti-bi Essam said after penning the contract that Viettel should go to work to meet the needs of Cameroonians whom he noted have been impatiently waiting for the third operator. He said the Head of State had not only wanted another operator, but he also tirelessly worked to see into it that all the procedures were respected to the letter.
Viettel Group’s Director of Foreign investment, Nguyen Duc Quang, said with the concession agreement already signed, they would need 12 months to set base for full operation in 2014. “Immediately, we are starting with site survey and the putting in place of the infrastructure. We will provide citizens with third generation service technologies (high-level internet, video and audio sounds and images),” he said. With an investment package to the tune of 400 million US dollars (about FCFA 200 billion), Viettel’s officials said the company will cover over 81 per cent of the national territory and create over 6,000 direct and indirect jobs in the country. “We will cooperate with MTN and Orange to provide better services to Cameroonians,” Nguyen Duc Quang said.
Viettel Cameroun Sarl of Viettel Group is a Vietnamese major mobile telephone operator with headquarters in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is a State company wholly owned and operated by the country’s Ministry of Defence. Viettel Mobile is reportedly the fourth network in Vietnam (after Mobifone, Vinaphone and S-fone) and currently the biggest telecommunications provider, contributing 40.37 per cent to the total mobile communication market in the country. It is said to have successfully developed and popularised telecom services in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Haiti, Mozambique and Peru.
