Chunghwa Telecom makes a foray into mainland Chinese market

Taipei, August 10, 2004 (CENS)--Taiwan's state-run telecom provider Chunghwa Telecom will team up with China Telecom's Shanghai subsidiary and Suzhou subsidiary to tap business opportunities for offering services to Taiwanese business people in mainland China.

Also, the Taiwanese telecom carrier recently decided to open a subsidiary of its investment arm in Hong Kong as part of its plan to develop the mainland's telecom market.

Chunghwa's executives and their mainland counterparts expressed interest in cooperation on tapping the business opportunities based on demands from Taiwanese business people in the mainland at a recent telecom conference held in Shanghai.

According to Chunghwa Telecom, over 300,000 Taiwanese business people are staying in Shanghai and most of them reside around Suzhou Industrial Park. Currently, most of big Taiwanese enterprises in Shanghai have their own private circuit networks, allowing them to efficiently control their communication spending. But most of small and midsize Taiwanese enterprises in the mainland do not have such systems, making their connections with Taiwan and elsewhere in the mainland a hard and expensive work. To help them settle the difficulty, Chunghwa and China Telecom decided to cooperate. The two sides will base their services on the Asia Pacific Cable Network 2 (APCN2) undersea optical-fiber network to avert direct connection dispute. The network is co-invested by 10-some economies including Taiwan and mainland China.

Chunghwa's investment unit has opened an office in Shanghai and recently decided to open a subsidiary in Hong Kong to take charge of Chunghwa's telecom service in the mainland.

Last year, the Taiwan's No. 1 telecom carrier once rolled out broadband services in small scale to target Taiwanese business people in Shanghai.