News for Venezuela

State telecom produces mobile-phone
Venezuela Created: 7 May 2009
Venezuela has also launched its first locally made mobile phone. The phone, a model ZTE C366 that includes camera and mp3 storage, will cost 30 bolivars ($14), which is 25% cheaper than the cheapest cell phone currently available in Venezuela.

The phone is made by the state-owned telecommunications company Vetelca, which is aiming to produce 250,000 phones this year for both the Venezuelan market and the Latin American market.

Chavez inspected the phone on Sunday's television show, and said it was "light, beautiful, good, and cheap, designed by Movilnet." Movilnet is the state telephone and internet company.

"It is science and technology at the service of the people not the elites...the day will arrive when we manufacture phones for Cuba and Latin America," he said.

According to the government's national radio station RNV, Movilnet sold 8 million phones last year and is expecting to sell 9 million this year.

The Chávez administration nationalized Movilnet in 2007. Chávez said he expects the government will recuperate the cost of the nationalization, that is, the compensation paid to the previous owner, within two years. He said that previously a large amount of the company's profits were going outside the country and the bank accounts of the national elites, but now these resources are financing projects for the Venezuelan people.
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Source: Venezuelanalysis.com, Tamara Pearson, 05 May 2009

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