Islamabad, November 6, 2006: Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM), an emerging leader in Asian communications with operations in nine Asian countries, will continue to invest substantially in Pakistan, one of the fastest growing telecommunications markets in Asia.

The company plans to spend a total of USD100 million on "Project Ittehad", a massive project to connect 107 cities in Pakistan with 4,500km of fibre optic cable. 

The investment will be made through TM's Pakistani subsidiary, broadband operator Multinet Pvt Ltd, whose mission is to improve the state of the country's communications solutions by leveraging TM's global network assets.

Multinet will then be able to fulfil the needs of Pakistan's high-growth telecommunication sector, offering services to mobile phone operators, long distance international operators and internet service providers - all designed to boost the country's overall communications infrastructure.

Multinet is currently providing broadband Internet access via wired and wireless media in 12 cities including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Gujrat, Multan, Sargodha, Sahiwal, Sialkot and Shiekhupura.

TM has also invested in the 20,000km undersea cable (SMW-4), which allows Multinet, the only private company in Pakistan to offer high quality international connectivity services domestically through this facility.

"TM is the emerging leader for Asian communications and has all the right ingredients for international success with strong domestic leadership and strategic presence across the region, "Yusof said, adding by 2015, TM aims to be Asia's regional communications company of choice, represented by strong domestic brands.

Yusof Annuar Yaacob, Chief Executive Officer of TM's international investments holding arm TM International, speaking at a media briefing on the sidelines of the world Islamic Economic Forum, says the Malaysian telecommunications giant via its unit Multinet, is operating in a very dynamic sector of Pakistan's communications landscape.  

"TM is Malaysia's largest broadband operator and possess valuable expertise which we are sharing with our partners at Multinet in order to make our subsidiary the premier long haul and broadband operator in Pakistan in due time, " he said.

TM, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has a string of other subsidiaries in Asia where it has substantial equity control in several key mobile operators such as Dialog Telekom Ltd of Sri lanka (89.8 percent), TM International Bangladesh (70 percent), Telekom Malaysia International Cambodia (100 percent) and Indonesia's PT Excelcomindo (59.6 percent). It also has a significant 49 percent stake in Spice Telecom of India. To date, TM's combined regional subscriber numbers has topped 24 million across nine countries, including Malaysia.