Keep your fingers crossed.
01/24 04:30 Saudi sets new Feb deadline for telephone project
MANAMA, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has set a new February deadline for firms to resubmit bids for a telephone project that will add two million lines, doubling the capacity of the creaking network, an industry source said on Sunday.
The Saudi Telecommunications Company in Riyadh had previously asked international firms to submit their offer by November 30 -- giving them only one month's notice.
"We have submitted our offer before, and we are again asked to submit a new offer by February 15," one official at Ericsson <LMEb.ST> in Riyadh said.
"All the companies have been invited to submit new offers for this tender. The deadline is February 15."
Six international firms are vying for the contract, worth about $5.5-$6.5 billion and due to be completed in two years.
They are Lucent <LU.N>, Alcatel <CGEP.PA>, Siemens <SIEG.F>, NEC Corp <6701.T>, Ericsson and Northern Telecom <NTL.TO>.
Demand for telephone lines in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil producer and exporter, is growing rapidly, but financing of massive projects is difficult because of weak oil prices.
The kingdom, with a population of around 18 million, has just over two million telephone lines, industry sources said.
They would not say how the project was to be financed.
They said the introduction of the Internet in Saudi Arabia in January had put more pressure on existing telephone lines.
In 1994, AT&T Corp <T.N> won a $4 billion deal to double the telephone network in Saudi Arabia. The project was partly financed by Chase Manhattan Corp <CMB.N>.
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