British company sets up in Shanghai to prepare for opportunities in telecoms
Hong Kong's former telecommunications monopoly - Cable & Wireless - has returned to China, setting up a company that is expected to spearhead its mainland expansion.
The London-based firm yesterday said it had established Cable & Wireless Communications Technical Service (Shanghai), to prepare for a further opening of China's telecommunications markets.
The company, which built the first telephone network in Shanghai in the 1930s, kept two representative offices in Shanghai and Beijing after selling its Hong Kong telecommunications business to PCCW in 2000.
'This is a further commitment to China beyond what we have seen,' Cable & Wireless (China) general manager Roy Stanley said. 'It is quite an exciting time to get more involved in China.'
Cable & Wireless is hoping to grab a slice of the mainland's telecommunications service market as part of China's World Trade Organisation obligations, which will allow foreign firms into the sector when it is deregulated from 2006.
So far, Cable & Wireless has enlisted China Netcom as a key partner to support its enterprises in the mainland in the field of voice and data communications.