Press Release issued by the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau (CITB) on 5 January 2005 Government Statement on HTIL's Staff Lay-off Plan

Regarding the staff lay-off plan announced by the Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited today (January 5), a spokesman for the Commerce, Industry and Technology Bureau said:

It is a commercial decision of Hutchison to lay off their staff.

The Government has a responsibility to ensure the efficient use of radio spectrum, which is a scarce public resource. The number of subscribers of Hutchison's CDMA service has declined sharply over the years to around 26,000 in July 2004. The decision not to grant Hutchison a new licence in November 2004 took into account this situation. We have however allowed a reasonable transitional arrangement for Hutchison to migrate its limited number of subscribers to other networks over a period of three years. We believe that the decision was taken in the public interest.

Ends/Wednesday, January 5, 2005