BEIRUT, 19 June 2005 — Iraq plans to hold international tenders by the end of this year to replace the country’s three expiring cell phone licenses, Iraqi Communications Minister Jowan Massoum said on Friday.
The government will hold a conference in London with Arab and global telecoms companies in July to gather opinion on setting the terms and duration of the new licenses, which will replace three licenses issued by the US-led occupation authority in 2003.
“Iraq is open to suggestions, but we will not renew the contracts of the existing operators automatically. They will have to compete,” Massoum said on the sidelines of an Arab investment conference in Beirut.
Egypt’s Orascom Telecom holds the license for central Iraq. Kuwait’s MTC covers the south, and two mostly Kurdish operators have effectively split the license for Iraqi Kurdistan. A quarter of a century of wars and crushing sanctions have damaged Iraq’s communications network badly. Cell phones entered the country of 27 million people only after the US-led invasion in 2003.
Massoum said the level of post-war demand made the new licenses attractive despite the violence.
