People"s deputies of the Prime Minister to prevent the association of mobile operators - Kyivstar and VimpelCom. In it the newspaper Kommersant was a member of the inquiry committee on transport and communications Vitaliy Korzh (YTB) to Yulia Tymoshenko, in which he urged the Prime Minister to intervene in the consideration of the Antimonopoly Committee (AMC) of the impact of consolidation of Kyivstar and VimpelCom. The MP believes that the merger would lead to de facto monopolization of radio frequency resource, and a substantial restriction of competition in the mobile market, in particular the slowdown in the introduction of UMTS (third-generation communication standard; 3G) in the country.

December 5 shareholders Kyivstar and VimpelCom - Norway"s Telenor and Russia"s Altimo - have agreed to merge the companies into a single Vimpelcom Ltd after a five-year corporate conflict. The deal, which is scheduled to close by mid-2010, must be approved by competition authorities of Russia and Ukraine, and also includes a review of mutual claims, are in production in international courts. Head of Federal Antimonopoly Service Igor Artemyev said that this issue will be considered at the next meeting date is unknown.

President investment banking unit SG Dragon Capital Maxim Nefodov notes that Kyivstar, and so has more in comparison with other operators of channel capacity, thus reducing the cost of building the network. A concentration frequency Kyivstar and URS in the hands of Vimpelcom Ltd will lead to the fact that the combined cost of services the operator will be an order of magnitude lower than those of competitors, the expert said.

in Kyivstar and the Norwegian Telenor (owns 56,5% of the operator) know about the deputy"s request Vitaliy Korzh, but refused to comment on its possible consequences. I. Fr. Chapter AMC Alexander Melnichenko yesterday declined to comment, citing employment. But in response to the deputy"s request Mr. Korzh of January 11, Mr. Melnichenko promises to take into account when deciding the information contained in the appeal.

Moreover, the initiative supported by Vitaliy Korzh MPs of other factions, in particular the colleague of Mr. Korzh Committee on Jury Morokov (Party of Regions). According to him, as a result of the merger competitive market situation will worsen: "CSR as a small operator performed the initiator of many bills aimed at increasing competition. The company is now moving into the camp operators, who have always blocked similar bills through a powerful lobby."

However, experts predict that the AMC will still take a positive for Vimpelcom Ltd decision. "AMC is affected by the government, which heavily lobby the major operators", - says Yuri Morokov. "The proportion of Kyivstar income market has already exceeded 50%, but no action by the AMC is not provoked, - adds the analyst IR Concorde Capital Yegor Samusenko .- And even if the Antimonopoly Committee does not approve the deal," Kyivstar "can lobby law, which enables URS convey the company frequency.

Roman Sudolsky

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