Myanmar snubs SingTel and Soros for telecoms licence award

Government officials in Myanmar have chosen Telenor and Qatar Telecom’s Ooredoo to be the first foreign telecoms operators in the country.

The winners of the 15-year concession, announced last night, came as a surprise and showed that Myanmar is willing to make its own decisions as it opens its economy to foreign investors. Many analysts had predicted a comfortable win for SingTel, which was bidding as part of a consortium with Myanmar’s biggest lender, Kanbawza Bank.

“Extensive expertise in large markets with the highest number of mobile customers, especially in low-income markets of Asia Pacific, backing by Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek and good government and...