The operator of MobiFone, the Vietnam Mobile Service Company (VMS) will be restructured as a one-member limited liability company.

A draft decree guiding implementation of the Telecommunications Law will limit foreign investors to no more than 30 percent of the chartered capital of Vietnamese telecoms companies.

The draft will be submitted to the Government in August by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIT).

Foreign investors will be permitted to provide telecom services without network infrastructure in the form of joint venture or business cooperation contracts (BCC) with telecom firms licenced in Vietnam.

Foreign-invested projects that supply telecom services with network infrastructure valued at two trillion dong ($105 million) or more will have to be approved by the Prime Minister. Those with investment capital of between one and two trillion dong will require approval by MoIT.

In related news, the operator of MobiFone, the Vietnam Mobile Service Company (VMS) will be restructured as a one-member limited liability company under a recent decision approved by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung.

VMS will have a chairman, a general director and a controller. The General Director of VNPT Group will be the chair of VMS for at least one year after the change.

Under the Business Law that goes into effect on July 1, state enterprises that have not yet been equitized (i.e., have not issued shares) must become ‘one-member limited liability companies.’ The ‘one member’ is the state. PetroVietnam was the first state-owned group to announce its change into this form.

The equitisation of MobiFone started in 2005 but until now has not been finished. In consequence, VMS too will become a one-member limited liability company.

PV