Grameenphone Ltd. has recently crossed the 15 million mobile phone subscriber mark. The company has also signed a BDT 200 crore loan agreement with a consortium of local banks.

Grameenphone signed the syndicated loan agreement with 16 local financial institutions for the BDT 200 crore loan. Standard Chartered Bank is the lead arranger of this syndicated loan. Senior officials from the participating financial institutions and Grameenphone were present on the occasion at a city hotel today.

“We are honored to be serving 15 million customers. This is a great milestone for the company,” said Erik Aas, Chief Executive Officer of Grameenphone. “Grameenphone is committed to provide quality service at an affordable cost to our valued customers and also to make mobile telephony available to a much larger number of people in the country.”

Grameenphone has so far invested more than BDT 9000 crore up to June 2007. “Such timely and large investments have enabled us to aggressively increase the network capacity and prepare for continued growth,” observed the Grameenphone CEO.

Since its inception in March 1997, Grameenphone has built the largest cellular network in the country with base stations in more than 5000 locations. Presently, nearly 98 percent of the country's population is within the coverage area of the Grameenphone network.

The entire Grameenphone network is also EDGE/GPRS enabled, allowing access to high-speed Internet and data services from anywhere within the coverage area. There are currently nearly 3 million EDGE/GPRS users in the Grameenphone network.

The BDT 200 crore syndicated loan is being financed by Agrani Bank, Bank Asia, Citibank N.A., IDCOL, IFIC Bank, Jamuna Bank, National Bank, Pubali Bank, SABINCO, Sonali Bank, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Trust Bank, The City Bank, United Commercial Bank and  Uttara Bank.

Information Department
Grameenphone Ltd.
Phone: 9882990
email: info@grameenphone.com