BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

04/12/2007

Belarus agrees talks on MTS mobile venture stake

MTS has a 54 percent share of the Belarussian mobile market. Apart from Russia and Belarus, MTS operates in Armenia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. (Reporting by Andrei Makhovsky; writing by Maria Kiselyova; Editing by David Cowell) - MINSK, Dec 4 - Belarus will discuss raising the stake of Russia's largest mobile operator MTS in a Belarussian joint venture, an official said on Tuesday.

"There is an instruction to examine this question, and it is now being studied. If this question were to be settled, we need to state the value," Belarussian Deputy Communications Minister Ivan Rak told reporters.

He declined to say what stake the state would let MTS have, nor did he give the timings.

MTS currently owns 49 percent in MTS-Belarus but has been seeking a controlling stake in the mobile phone joint venture to be able to consolidate it into its own financial statements.

BelTelekom, the state company which owns the rest of the venture, has so far refused to talk, saying it wants to retain control of the country's mobile phone operators.

However, the ex-Soviet state agreed in October to sell control of the country's second-biggest mobile phone operator MDC to Telekom Austria for $1 billion.

Source:

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071204/tbs-mts-belarus-7318940.html