March 13, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 4, 1429

ISLAMABAD, March 12: Telecom companies have invested over eight billion dollars during the last four years, particularly in the mobile sector whose investment share accounts for 73 per cent.

The cellular mobile sector has invested over 2.7 billion dollar, which becomes a major share of investment by the sector.

Local loop segment of the industry is also taking off and in 2006-07 about 7.8 million dollars were invested by this sector while LDI operators have invested about 603 million dollars during this period, which is about 15 per cent of the total investment by the sector.

It is expected that the trend of investment may continue in the next five years because large potential market still exists in Pakistan and all operators intend to grab their share.

China Mobile acquired Paktel which has contracted out 500 million dollars project to renowned companies to roll out their networks.

Similarly, Mobilink also plans to invest 500 million dollars in 2007-08 for improvement of quality of service and infrastructure expansion.

Wateen Telecom, which has already laid down 5,400 km of optical fibre across the country, has announced to invest 600 million dollars in the next two years for improvement of its infrastructure.

The telecom sector has emerged as largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Pakistan during the last few years as competition has compelled many companies to expand their infrastructure, which requires more investment from foreign sources.The telecom sector has attracted record inflow of FDI in the last two years and has emerged as the only sector of economy that attracted such a huge investment where its share in total FDI crossed 54 per cent.—APP