By Uzma Zafar & Asghar Mubarak., the Daily Mail

China Mobile is world's largest cellular phone company with over 300 million subscribers. China Mobile is also considered to be the best cellular service provider across the world. The Company was admitted as a constituent stock of the Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong in1998. As the leading mobile services provider in China, the Group boasts the world's largest unified, contiguous all-digital mobile network and the world's largest mobile subscriber base. In 2006, the Company was once again selected as one of the "FT Global 500" by Financial Times, and the "The World's 2000 Biggest Public Companies" by Forbes magazine. Currently, the Company's corporate credit rating is A/Outlook Stable by Standard and Poor's and A2/Positive Outlook by Moody's (respectively equivalent to China's sovereign credit rating.

China Mobile has recently launched it's first ever overseas venture and for that, it's first and the best choice was no place else but China's time-tested and all-weather friend Pakistan. China Mobile purchased Pakistan's oldest and first ever Cellular Company Paktel earlier this year and renamed the company as CMPak, making an initial investment of $460 million. The Daily Mail arranged an exclusive interview with the CEO of CMPak Mr. Guo Yonghong in presence of The President of The Daily Mail Mr. Makhdoom Babar, to know about this first ever overseas venture of China Mobile which we are publishing here for our readers' interest.

Mr. Guo Yonghong said that the China Mobile's venture of launching it's operations in Pakistan by purchasing Paktel would, without any doubt, take Pak-China economic cooperation to new heights and the project was launched in accordance with the constantly growing economic cooperation between China and Pakistan. He said that the rapid launching of the project was a crystal clear example of China's determination for the swift implementation of agreements of cooperation, particularly economic cooperation between Pakistan and China. He said that the investment, so far made by China Mobile in Pakistan was the largest FDI in 2007 while the company was planning to pour in around $400million in near future to expand it's operations in Pakistan and thus the FDI from China Mobile in Pakistan would continue to pour in. He said that since China Mobile's investments in Pakistan made China the largest investor in the country in this year so far, China Mobile, through it's Paktel venture would create a number of job opportunities for locals in Pakistan which would be yet another gesture to improve and enhance Pak-China Friendship.

To a question the Paktel CEO said that when China Mobile decided to launch it's first ever venture in a foreign country,Pakistan was the first and the best choice. "There was a variety of reasons for this choice. First of all it is because Pakistan is China's best and most trusted and tested friend. Then there was a growing desire to contribute to Pakistan's growing economy by enhancing China's economic cooperation with Pakistan. Next consideration was that Pakistan has a large potential market for the cellular phone industry with a huge room to deliver as well and furthermore the open market policy in Pakistan was also a source of inspiration to select Pakistan for launching our maiden foreign venture", asserted Guo Yonghong. He said that Pakistan government's Investor Friendly economic policies were in fact a really encouraging factor for any foreign investor and expressed the hope that after such a huge investment by China Mobile in Pakistan, many other leading Chinese entrepreneurs would get encouraged and would opt to explore the Pakistani markets. He said that the investment of China Mobile in Pakistan was notmerely a commercial venture but in fact China Mobile desired to be the envoy of friendship between Pakistan and China. "Our mission is to be leading Mobile Operators in Pakistan by continuously innovating and offering exceptional quality services and to be a good corporate citizen and to be an Envoy of Friendship between China and Pakistan," expressed Guo Yonghong.

To a question about the functioning of Paktel under China Mobile's state-of-the-art expertise and future plans of expansion and services, Guo Yonghong said that China Mobile was world largest mobile operator. However inPakistan, its venture Paktel was just at the bottom and ranks at number 5 on the list of total 6 mobile operators in the country. But he said that it was a great challenge and the top priority task to make Paktel on top in Pakistan and to become the number one mobile company of this country. He said they were so far just following the mainstream mobile operators in Pakistan and were yet to introduce the reshaped Paktel.

The CM PAK CEO told The Daily Mail that there was a huge expansion plan on the card which includes the recruitment of more telecom experts, sending of existing Pakistani employees for advanced courses to China and increasing the number of base station by a minimum of three times to the existing strength. He said that it had been planned to install a huge number of base stations acrossPakistan to reach every corner of the country to increase Paktel family of subscribers to the maximum. "We have decided to introduce a communication of excitement and for that we have a comprehensive master plan and hundreds of value added services that none of our contemporaries are providing in Pakistan at the moment. We will take mobile phone to new horizons and it would not be just a mobile phone any more, once we would launch our comprehensive operations," explained Guo Yonghong. He said since Paktel had lost a huge number of its subscribers over the past few years, there was enough room for them to come up with a variety of innovations and expressed his very strong hope to get back all the gone customers back to Paktel while attracting the new ones.

To another question, he said that China Mobile's arrival was very warmly welcomed by Pakistani business community and the way he has been assured the support by local businessmen and industrialists, he was very optimistic of a great success of China Mobile inPakistan through Paktel project.