In addition to big telecom companies such as Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and Nokia, Vietnam expects to see more investments from Norway’s Telenor, Japan’s NTT DocoMo, UK’s Vodafone and US Lucent Technologies.

Foreign businesses have not only developed their market share in Vietnam but also planed to establish joint ventures and took part in the equitisation of domestic telecom companies.

Recently, Vimpel Com, a large mobile phone company of Russia, has signed a US$1 billion agreement to set up a joint venture with the Global Telecom Corporation with the aim of providing all kinds of telecom services in Vietnam.

The MobiFone, the largest mobile phone firm in Vietnam, has selected the Credit Suisse from Switzerland out of ten foreign companies as a consultant during its equitisation process.

Ola Ree, Vietnam-based chief representative of Norway’s Telenor known as one of the seven largest mobile phone service providers in the world, said that the domestic mobile telecom market has seen spectacular progress and his company is eager to expand its investment in the market.

According to Deputy Minister of Information and Telecommunications, Nguyen Thanh Hung, even though foreign businesses are interested in Vietnam’s mobile phone market, Vietnam should continue to improve the investment environment in order to make full use of this source of capital. He urged domestic businesses to actively cooperate with foreign partners.