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Ethiopia Awards Safaricom First Telecom License

May 22 , 2021

Ethiopia has awarded a telecom license to the Global Partnership for Ethiopia, a consortium of Safaricom, Vodafone, Vodacom, CDC Group Plc, and Sumitomo Corp. The highly anticipated award gives a full telecom operator license to a private business for the first time in over a century.

The consortium offered 850 million dollars and the Ethiopian Communications Authority has already confirmed that it has won the bid, which was opened three weeks ago.

The other bidder, the consortium of MTN and the Chinese Silk Road Fund, did not manage to win a license as its 600 million dollar offer was deemed inadequate by the authorities.

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