Of the total, 13.77 billion yuan (about US$1.7 billion) came from the cellular business, an increase of 45.7 percent over the corresponding time, said Yang.

Currently China Unicom's total cellular subscribers reached 34.07 million (about US$4.26 million), adding 7.04 million new cellular subscribers compared with the end of 2001, he added.

Yang also stated, "China United Telecommunications Corporation, our parent company, is planning to issue A shares in the mainland to raise funds for part of our CDMA network construction."

Yang said "the company is planning to acquire the quality assets of the cellular business in nine Chinese provinces and municipality, currently under the operation of our parent company."

He expressed belief that those two above-mentioned measures would be beneficial to the operation of the group and be in the interest of its shareholders.

With regard to the group's future development, Tang noted that GSM service would remain the principal source of the group's operating revenue and profit, while launching CDMA business was a strategic decision to establish a leading position in the market.

According to Yang, China Unicom's CDMA network would be upgraded to CDMA 1X by the end of this year.

In order to fully leverage on the advantage offered by CDMA 1X technology in providing ample mobile data services at medium-to-high speed, the group would expedite the research and development of new CDMA services, introduce a variety of international collaboration in the form of proven data service applications, strengthen the coordination of every segment of the industry value chain and develop new profit growth drivers for cellular communications, Yang said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2002)