George Soros teams up with Irish tycoon Denis O’Brien for Myanmar's telecoms services

With the market in Burma opening up to foreign investment, Irish businessman Denis O'Brien has come out with  details of his intention to seek a mobile phone licence.

Joining forces with billionaire George Soros the telecommunications tycoon is keen to secure a telecoms licence in Myanmar, which was opening up to outside investment with its recent move towards democracy after decades of often brutal military rule.

The Burmese government had been inviting  potential operators to set up and run two new telecoms services.

A consortium including O'Brien's Digicel group in association with George Soros' Quantum Strategic Partners and Burma's Yoma Strategic Holdings, led by local businessman Serge Pun has just submitted its pre-qualification application to the Burmese government.

O'Brien, who is chairman of Digicel and also a major shareholder in Independent News & Media, said Digicel had been successful in entering recently liberalised markets and driving tele-density in underserved countries across the globe.

He added, with the current mobile penetration below 10 per cent in Myanmar, the consortium was committed to rolling out a world-class telecommunications network.

Digicel with operations across the Caribbean and Pacific region, had become a major telecoms player in just over a decade and had also made a fortune for O'Brien, who was recently ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the world's richest people.

Jamaica-based Digicel has built up a leading presence in 30 developing economies in the past 12 years. Pun is recognised as being one of the country's most prominent entrepreneurs.

Myanmar currently has an economy growing at a rate of over 5 per cent per year, though mobile phone penetration was below 10 per cent.

As the tender process for the two licences was at a very early stage, final timelines and potential bid details were unknown.

The Digicel-led consortium's submission this week ranked as a 'pre-qualification application' and it was thought both licences would attract much interest.

Meanwhile, Vodafone too announced that it had teamed up with China Mobile - currently ranked as the world's largest mobile network operator, with the largest subscriber base of over 720 million users - to launch a preliminary application for a licence, saying Burma would be ''an important market for the global mobile industry''.

According to Soros, the liberalisation of the telecommunications market in Burma would serve as ''an important economic stimulus for the country''; while Serge Pun said the heads of consortium shared a common objective ''to offer affordable, first-class communications to the people of Myanmar''.

He added the consortium was uniquely positioned to deliver this vision.