Verizon president visits President of Argentina, 800M Investments

Por Hector D. Calabia

IDG News Service, Buenos Aires Bureau

BUENOS AIRES – 01/23/2001

 

The President of Argentina, Fernando de la Rúa received Monday the president of Verizon International, Michael Masin. The top executive confirmed that his company is about to invest more than US$800 million in Argentina until 2003, according to statements issued both by the company and the Argentine Government.

 

Verizon is the main shareholder in the Argentine mobile carrier Compañía de Teléfonos del Interior S.A. (popularly known as CTI Móvil). According to the statement, CTI has already invested $2 billion in Argentina in the last decade.

 

The president of CTI Móvil Carlos Espinal Guifarro also attended the meeting. The company executives said they are "satisfied" with the government policies regarding telecommunications because they foster competition and will be favorable for consumers and telcos alike.

 

However, Espinal Guifarro reminded the Argentine President that there are still some "market distortions". The allusion tacitly pointed to Telefónica de Argentina S.A. and Telecom Argentina Stet-France Telecom S.A., the former duopoly that dominated the Argentine market from 1990 to 2000, and that are still the most powerful telecommunications companies in the country.

 

Argentina has just received a very strong financial endorsement from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) known as a "financial shield". This is a multilateral loan of more than $30 billion for this year, as a currency stability  backup (the Argentine peso has been on par with the dollar for the last ten years) and as collateral for the country creditors. Verizon's president said that in this scenario the company "is ready to invest more in order to offer more and better services" to the economy.

 

CTI Móvil was the first mobile telephony company to operate in the inner provinces of Argentina. After the market deregulation operated last year, it still remains the strongest operator in those areas, and is now serving also the Greater Buenos Aires areas. At present, it has over 1 million subscribers.

 

CTI Móvil is at http://www.cti.com.ar. Verizon Communications is at http://www.verizon.com .

 

 

This article was originally published by the IDG World Network of magazines and Web Sites
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