Addis Ababa, 27 November 2014 (WIC) – Ethiopia will give other companies parts of a telecommunications project it awarded to ZTE Corp. (000063) after a contract dispute with the state-owned Chinese company, Communications and Information Technology Minister Debretsion Gebremichael said.
The government has held talks with Helsinki-based Nokia Oyj (NOK1V) and Ericsson AB of Sweden about them taking over segments of the contract, which seeks to double mobile-phone network capacity in the Horn of African country and expand 3G coverage nationwide by June, Debretsion said.
“We’ve already started negotiations with Ericsson and Nokia,” he said by phone yesterday from the capital, Addis Ababa. “We didn’t sign as we have to close the issue with ZTE before getting into any other major contractual agreement.” (businessweek.com)