Chinanet, one of the China’s six nationwide ISPs, is expected to list next year, according to Wang Fule, vice-general manager of China Telecom’s Beijing subsidiary. Chinanet, an affiliate of Beijing Telecom and the country’s largest ISP, needs capital to finance its business plan. It takes a lot of money to develop ISP business, said Wang, and this year alone we have spent 1.45bn yuan ($175.1m). Wang also said that China Telecom’s nationwide fixed-line operations, the Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT) is unlikely to be listed in the near future although it will definitely be taken public at some stage. Some of China Telecom’s provincial mobile operations are listed in Hong Kong under the umbrella of China Telecom (HK), one of the territory’s top performing stocks.
