On 1 October, the disposal of the CDMA Business by China Unicom to China Telecom was completed. On 15 October, the merger of China Unicom with China Netcom became effective and the Company announced the change of its company name from "China Unicom Limited" to "China Unicom (Hong Kong) Limited".
On 15 November, the Company announced that China United Network Communications Group Company Limited ("Unicom Group") and China Network Communications Group Corporation ("Netcom Group") had agreed to undertake a merger. The merger was approved by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council ("SASAC") and became effective on 6 January 2009.
In December, the Company entered into a cooperative agreement with China Telecom and China Mobile to jointly build and share telecommunication infrastructure.
On 16 December, the Company announced its proposed acquisitions of certain assets and business related to its core business from Unicom Group and Netcom Group and the lease of telecommunications networks across 21 provinces in Southern China from Unicom Group. The proposed acquisition was completed on 31 January 2009 and the lease became effective on 1 January 2009. |