HÀ NỘI — The Việt Nam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT), the country’s largest telecom operator, plans to spend US$1 billion on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in technology enterprises.

Trần Mạnh Hùng, VNPT’s chairman of the member’s board, said at a conference held Tuesday in Hà Nội that the group needed to focus on M&A activities in the next two to three years to be competitive globally in the future.

Hùng said there should be support from the Committee for State Capital Management (CSCM) in VNPT’s implementation of M&A deals. M&A was one of the solutions helping VNPT realise its strategy of expanding to international markets quickly.

CSCM is responsible for managing State capital at enterprises where the State holds a 100 per cent stake and at joint stock companies and limited liability companies with multiple members where the State has invested its capital.

VNPT is among 19 State-owned economic groups and corporations managed by the CSCM.

“VNPT expects the CSCM to give it stronger support, empowering the Board of Members by giving them more authority in M&A activity,” Hùng said.

M&A activities required complicated processes such as corporate valuation, assessments, needing consultation from international consulting firms, he added.

VNPT targets to increase its profits by 10 to 15 per cent in 2019, raising revenue by 7 to 9 per cent, according to Hùng.

Next year, VNPT will transform the Group’s growth model towards improving labour productivity and enhancing competitiveness. At the same time, the company will be developing a business model in accordance with digital transformation.

VNPT will also promote the StreamNet project, a joint venture between VNPT and Myanmar’s Elite Telecom Public Co Ltd, launched in October 2017. The group will focus on increasing the number of subscribers and promoting digital services.

At the same time, it will complete the E-Office project for the Lao Ministry of Posts and Telematics, bringing E-Office solutions into the operation of ministries, departments, sectors as well as implement the provision of IT services in Laos.

Next year the company will also promote its research and investment in ‘Fibre to the x’ (FTTx), the most modern broadband technology available, in some potential markets including Indonesia, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Philippines. — VNS