Nepal’s only billionaire ties up with Huawei to transform country’s telecoms

Binod Chaudhary’s CG Telecom this week reached a $100 million deal with China’s Huawei Technologies to set up a fourth-generation network across Nepal, the biggest step yet in advancing his ambitions to carve out a large piece of the country’s telecom market.

Following the path blazed by Mukesh Ambani in shaking up India’s telecommunications market with his low-cost Jio mobile service, Nepal’s only billionaire is plunging ahead with plans for his own discount network even against regulatory resistance.

“The deal between CG and Huawei will be good for consumers as it will increase competition in terms of both price and quality of calls and data packages,” said Chandan Sapkota, an economist and senior fellow at the think tank Nepal Economic Forum. “4G is still not available nationwide and the strategy of CG to launch 4G services nationwide with new technology is a welcome move.”

Starting off with the Wai Wai instant noodle brand, the Chaudhary Group has ventured into property, textiles, cement, banking, energy, infrastructure, consumer goods, hotels, and other sectors.

In Nepal, CG Telecom aims to kick off with free voice calls and bring overall voice and data prices down 50%, spokesman Madhusudhan Poudel said. Chaudhary has talked of investing up to $250 million to launch the new services.

While the U.S. has put pressure on other governments to shun Huawei and Chinese peer ZTE, the duo largely have a lock on Nepal’s telecom infrastructure. Between them, they equip Nepal’s three major operators, Nepal Telecom, Smart Telecom, and Ncell, controlled by Malaysia’s Axiata Group. State-owned Nepal Telecom awarded ZTE a 19 billion Nepal rupee ($174.44 million) contract in February to build a 4G network.

“The question of Huawei being a threat is not applicable to us as we see all vendors from the viewpoint of our laws,” said Nepal Telecommunications Authority director Min Prasad Aryal.