BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

23/10/2006

Belarusian personal telecom services up 25.4% on year Jan-Sep

MINSK, Oct 23 (Prime-Tass) -- Belarusian companies provided 1.226 trillion Belarusian rubles worth of telecommunication services to individuals in January-September, up 25.4% on the year, against a projection of 16% to 18%, an official with Belarus? Statistics and Analysis Ministry told Prime-Tass Monday.

The share of Belarusian government-controlled companies amounted to 763.4 billion rubles, up 18.1% on the year, and that of independent companies was at 442.3 billion rubles, up 39.8%, the official said.

Government-controlled companies' revenues in January-September amounted to 1.374 trillion rubles and net profit in January-August was at 436.4 billion rubles, up 70% on the year, the official said.

Profit margin of telecom services was at 46.4% in January-August 2006, up from 34.7% as of September 1, 2005.

In January-August Belarusian companies exported U.S. $77.7 million worth of communication services, up 18.6% on the year, and imported $42.9 million worth of services, down 8.9% on the year.

As of October 1, 2006 the country had 3.3 million telephones, including 2.8 million in homes. The number of home phones per 1,000 people reached 293 in urban areas and 219 in rural areas.

(2,141 Belarusian rubles - U.S. $1)

Source:

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/19985.php