Palace: South Korean telco keen to be third player
A SOUTH KOREAN firm, apart from Beijing’s China Telecom, is interested in entering the telecommunications industry in the country, according to Communications Secretary Jose Ruperto Martin M. Andanar.
“We had a Cabinet meeting with the President, the 21st Cabinet meeting which was also the first Cabinet meeting for this year. At the meeting, DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) Acting Secretary Eliseo M. Rio, Jr. mentioned that so far there are two foreign companies that have expressed interest to be the third player in the telecommunications industry. First, the China Telecom, plus the consortium which was not mentioned. Second in the list is the Korean telecom company with its partner, the Philippine Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (PT&T),” Mr. Andanar said in Filipino in a radio interview on Tuesday night, Jan. 9.
It will be recalled that in November last year, President Rodrigo R. Duterte had offered the People’s Republic of China the opportunity to operate as one of the key players in the telecommunications industry in the country.
Mr. Andanar likewise announced that the government is targeting to have the third telecommunications player start its operations “this year.”
He added that the DICT has been “fasttracking” the entry of the third telecom player in order to make the telecommunications industry in the country “more competitive,” noting that the PLDT Group, through the initiative of Manuel V. Pangilinan, has already committed “P58 billion” as its capital expenditure for this year. For its part, Globe Telecom, the only other telco player in the country, will be “adding over P47 billion” to its investment.
“We can really see that even just the announcement itself encourages these two telco giants to invest more money for the improvement of their services. So, that in itself is already a victory for the Filipino people,” Mr. Andanar said.
This is really going to be an exciting year for the telco industry for 2018,” he added.