China United Telecommunications (China Unicom), the second-largest mobile operator in China, has obtained a seeming priority status in the bidding for CDMA license to be issued by the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government.

Unicom was among five companies that have submitted bids to operate Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) service in Macao.

According to the bidders, the government's bidding regulation for CDMA service gave a preferential status to outside companies rather than to local firms. Unicom was the only "outsider" in the bidding while the other four bidders are all locally-based companies, including Macao's leading telecommunications provider CTM as well as SmarTone and Kong Seng Paging Co. Ltd.

Tou Veng Keong, coordinator of the Telecommunications Office under the Information Technology Department of the Macao SAR government, said that all the five companies are qualified. The government will make the final decision and announce the winner by March 14, 2005.

Zhao Le, executive director and vice president of China Unicom, said his company boasts the largest CDMA network in the world and is the main service provider for Chinese mainland CDMA users who travel to Macao. The company is able to offer Macao citizens CDMA rambling and value-added services when they travel to China's mainland.

Referring to the government's preferential terms in the bidding, Zhao said that the government's considerations are reasonable, which gave an equal bidding status to outside bids.

The Macao SAR government plans to select a CDMA service provider launching the operation in time for the opening of the Fourth East Asian Games, which will be the first comprehensive sports games hosted by Macao in October next year.

With a small land coverage of 27.3 square kilometers, Macao SAR has a large population of 454,000. It hosted over 11 million visitors last year. The booming trend in the gaming-oriented tourism is expected to drive up the number of visitors to a new high of 15 million this year, according to industry insiders.