Korea Telcom is reviewing their projects in Africa as well as reinforcing its competitiveness in the telecommunication area.
This action, according to their local media will scale down the telecommunication company in Rwanda as well as other African countries.
This is why, during the term of the outgoing Chairman Lee Suk-chae, Korea Telcom signed an agreement in March 2013 to invest $140 million in Rwanda to build a fourth-generation (4G) mobile network that will serve 95 percent of the country’s population.
The company is still looking to expand its territory into Kenya and Uganda.
“One of the key priorities for the upcoming CEO is to recover KT’s telecommunications-related business. Synergy will be maximized only after realizing business structures that can generate profit in a stable manner regardless of market situations,” Korea Telecom official tells their media.
“The new CEO (Hwang Chang-gyu) will re-examine our African business projects from a zero-base,” he said.
The review of the overseas projects comes on the back of KT officials feeling the pinch in its domestic market as its globalization efforts are seen to have sacrificed its competitiveness locally.
“The outgoing CEO was busy following ‘trendy business projects.’ KT should set short-term, mid-term and long-term targets if it wants to earn results from overseas business projects that the company is involved in,” said Chang Joon-hyuck, senior vice president at Atlas Research and Consulting.