Albania To Sell Its 15% Stake in First Mobile Operator AMC

“The decision has been taken on Wednesday at the government meeting,” government spokesman Grig Rroji told SeeNews but did not say when interested bidders will be invited.

Cosmote ( www.cosmote.gr ) bought an 85% stake in AMC ( www.amc.al ), Albania's first mobile operator, for $85.6 million (66.57 million euro) from the government in 2000.

AMC posted a 20.36% annual rise in operating income for the first half of the year to 46.1 million euro. During the second quarter alone AMC had 46.3 million euro revenue.

The number of AMC's subscribers reached 1.28 million at the end June, up from 1.09 million a year earlier.

Vodafone Albania, a unit of British telecommunications giant Vodafone, is the second mobile operator in the nation of 3.13 million. It was launched in 2001. The third mobile phone operator in Albania is Eagle Mobile, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the country's fixed-line monopoly Albtelecom.

($=0.7777 euro)