South Africa’s MTN and Its Chinese Backers Look Like They’re Going to Mount Another Bid For An Ethiopian Telco License

South African telecom company MTN together with the state-owned Silk Road Fund of China are reportedly preparing to make another bid to secure a telecom license in Ethiopia.

MTN was outbid last week by a Kenyan-Japanese consortium that also included financing from the U.S. Development Finance Corporation for the first of two licenses that were up for auction. The Safaricom-Sumitomo offer of $850 million for the license was $250 million more than what MTN and the Silk Road Fund put forth.

Although Ethiopian authorities have taken the second license off the market, they’ve indicated it’ll be back up for sale after “some policy adjustments to the bidding process,” according to Bloomberg.

MTN officials at this point are not providing any details of what a future bid will look like but they do appear determined to fight for that second license. “We will be guided by the same capital allocation disciplines we had with the first bid, and make the appropriate decision,” the company told the South African news site Daily Maverick.

One of the key issues here is whether or not Chinese-made equipment from Huawei and ZTE will be used in the new Ethiopian networks. Under the terms of the Safaricom-Sumitomo offer, these companies have committed to not use any Chinese-made equipment in their network. But if MTN is successful on their second try, it’s likely, especially given the prominent role of the Silk Road Fund, that Chinese gear will be used.

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The post South Africa’s MTN and Its Chinese Backers Look Like They’re Going to Mount Another Bid For An Ethiopian Telco License appeared first on The China Africa Project.



source https://chinaafricaproject.com/2021/05/26/south-africas-mtn-and-its-chinese-backers-look-like-theyre-going-to-mount-another-bid-for-an-ethiopian-telco-license/

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