By IANS,
New Delhi : Bank of China will extend a loan of $70 million to Sistema Shyam TeleServices, the telecom joint venture between Sistema of Russia and Shyam group of India, to strengthen its wireless infrastructure.
The loan is for eight years with three years of moratorium on principal repayment and will help Sistema Shyam expand its geographical reach and seamlessly serve the growing subscriber-base, the company said in a statement.
Sistema Shyam will invest the loan amount to source supplies from China’s ZTE, a leading provider of telecommunications equipment and network services to build the CDMA network, to be offered under the MTS brand.
“The deal with Bank of China is one of the many steps that we are taking to add impetus to our plan of establishing the MTS brand in India and differentiate positioning on parameters of robust infrastructure and quality network,” said Sistema Shyam chief financial officer Sergey Savchenko.
“This is the first facility arranged with an international bank and I believe that it offers a way for other large and beneficial agreements in the future,” Savchenko added.
Sistema Shyam currently serves over 1.35 million subscribers across six circles – Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Rajasthan, Kolkata, West Bengal and Bihar.
MTS mobile telephony services are provided to about 100 million people in six countries.