Financial Times - Dialog in new investment of Rs 15 billion in telecom

Dialog Telekom – Sri Lanka’s largest mobile communications operator, and one of Sri Lanka’s largest infrastructure investors recently signed a hallmark investment agreement with the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BoI) to invest a further Rs. 15 billion ($150 million) in the country’s telecommunications sector within the next two years.

The bullish investment will be targeted at Mobile, Wireless Local Loop Fixed Telephony, broadband, fibre optic backbone and International Gateway infrastructures, the company said in a statement.

A significant portion of this investment would be towards the deployment of fibre optic backbone, broadband and fixed telephony infrastructure sectors through Dialog Telekom’s fully owned subsidiary Dialog Broadband Networks (Pvt) Ltd.

This brings the total investment in Dialog Telekom, close to $450 million (Rs 45 billion). Dialog Telekom, from humble beginnings as the fourth entrant to the mobile telecommunications market in 1995 has established itself as the largest company in terms of market capitalization on the Colombo Stock Exchange and the largest mobile operator in Sri Lanka with a subscriber base of approximately 2.3 million customers distributed across all 9 provinces of the island. Dialog Telekom, has also diversified in to International Telecommunications with its power brand Dialog Global and also operates a fully fledged ISP, Dialog Internet and the country’s premier satellite mobile phone service Dialog SAT.

The signing ceremony was held in the presence of Minister of Enterprise Development and Investment Promotion, Rohitha Bogollagama. Chairman of Dialog Telekom Ltd (and Telekom Malaysia Bhd), Tan Sri Dato’ Ir Muhammad Radzi bin Haji Mansor and Chairman/Director General of the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka, Prof. Lakshman R Watawala signed on behalf of the respective parties.

Mr Radzi said, “This investment signifies our utmost and continued confidence in the Sri Lankan market and the investor friendly policies of the Sri Lankan government. TM sees Sri Lanka as a key growth centre in the Asian region and considers the country to be one of our best success stories outside Malaysia.”

He said Sri Lanka’s forward thinking policies provides for a very fertile ground for a long-term investor like Dialog Telekom. “Our team in Sri Lanka has delivered impressive results over the last few years and has contributed significantly to the country. We are happy to make this additional investment with the objective of playing an even bigger role on the country’s telecommunications landscape.”

Dialog Chief Executive Dr Hans Wijayasuriya said the proposed expansion involves an aggressive coverage and capacity expansion of our GSM mobile network leading upto the establishment of our 1,000th base station, the expansion of our International Gateway infrastructure and the entry in to future oriented sectors across all regions of Sri Lanka.

Investments in Dialog Broadband Networks are targeted at enhancing Internet penetration levels through forward investments in deployment of a national fibre optic backbone and introduction of state-of-the-art wireless technology for broadband Internet delivery, he added.