Russia's Vimpelcom gets Vietnam mobile license

HANOI, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Vietnam has licensed a mobile services venture that includes Russia's No.2 mobile phone operator Vimpelcom (VIP.N), a state-run newspaper said on Friday.

Gtel venture, formed by the police ministry and Vimpelcom, will provide GSM-technology services and build telecoms infrastructure, the Vietnam Economic Times newspaper quoted an Information and Communications Ministry official as saying.

Vimpelcom said last September that it will invest up to $1 billion in the venture that may become the centre of its Asian operations.

Vietnam has six other mobile phone service providers. Three of them use GSM technology and report faster subscriber growth than the three with CDMA technology.

Last month HT Mobile, a $655-million CDMA technology-based venture with Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (2332.HK) (HTX.N), applied and won approval to shift to using GSM technology, the government said last week.

The venture served less than 300,000 users a year after it started operating in January 2007, short of its target to have 1 million users, state media reported.

Vietnam, with a growing population of 85 million people and its economy expanding about 8 percent a year, saw the number of mobile phone users soar about 80 percent last year to 35.2 million, industry figures show. (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Michael Urquhart)