telecom - Netcom sees no merger with Unicom

Zuo Xunsheng, the CEO of China Netcom, has been after Wang Jianzhou of China Mobile, the second oracle in the Chinese telecom industry that goes public. Zou is in charge since he replaced Edward Tian in May of this year and it was the first time, as Bloomberg points out, for him to talk in public. China Netcom expects the 3G-licenses to be issued in the first quarter of 2007, but since that is in the Chinese market only a formality, that information might not be that relevant.
China Mobile is expected to finish its first 'trial network' in the six Olympic cities already by the end of this year.
Most interesting remark was the indirect way Zuo denied a possible merger between China Netcom and China Unicom. Both companies were expected to team up, since each of them might not have deep enough pockets to roll out a decent 3G-system, rumors in the market suggested. Zuo does not mention Unicom by name, but does say that Netcom has enough capital to fund its own network:

``Based on industry standards, to build a nationwide network, it would take investment of between 80 billion yuan and 100 billion yuan over three years,'' Zuo said.

He said the company has enough resources to build and operate a 3G network and doesn't plan to bring in more investors for now.

China Netcom is already having partnership with PCCW from Hong Kong and Telefonica from Spain.