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Strategies & Market Trends : Telebras (TBH) & Brazil -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Art Baeckel who wrote (21221)	8/3/2000 7:53:14 AM
From: Art Baeckel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22640

UPDATE 1-Portugal Telecom, LatAm banks in B2B venture Reuters Company News - August 02, 2000 18:32 Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Jump to first matched term (Adds comments para 4, partner para 5, pvs Lisbon) SAO PAULO, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Two units of Portugal Telecom and three South American banks said on Wednesday they had agreed to team up to enter the burgeoning online business market in Latin America. Portugal Telecom, through its units PT Prime and Tradecom, formed a venture with banks Grupo Financiero Galicia and Banco Galicia of Argentina and with Brazil's Unibanco to create a platform for business-to-business online transactions. The partners plan to invest $100 million over the coming years to develop Web sites or portals that will allow companies operating in the southern trading bloc of Mercosul to trade products and services over the Net, Portugal Telecom said in a statement. "This is the first time that leading financial institutions from Mercosul have joined together for the development of e-marketplaces in this economic region," Portugal Telecom said. The companies want to gain a foothold in the Mercosul online trading area, which is set to become the most important in Latin America. Online sales volume for the trading bloc -- which groups Brazil and Argentina with Uruguay and Paraguay as associate members -- are forecast at more than $3.2 billion by 2003, the statement said. Companies buying and selling though the partners' online companies should be able to save up to 70 percent on purchasing costs, Portugal Telecom added. The partners did not specify how they'll split up the investment or its exact time frame. They will use technology provided by U.S.-based Commerce One Inc. . Portugal Telecom is already a partner with Brazil's Unibanco in the Zip.net portal and in banco1.net, an online bank. The company controls Telesp Celular phone company in Brazil. The companies expect to have online trading services up and running by the last quarter of this year. They plan to create two companies, one to manage the technical side of the electronic marketplaces and a second that will develop commercial operations.