"Telecoms is rapidly expanding. Ten years ago, people did not even think of the present growth of cellphone, which provides unlimited business opportunities. After studying the regional duty structure on cellphone equipment, we will certainly look into the matter," the minister said.

Saifur was speaking as chief guest at a ceremony at Sonargaon Hotel, marking the settlement of the first syndicated loan in the telecoms sector of Bangladesh.

Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) arranged the syndicated term loan facility of Tk 75 crore for the Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited (PBTL), the service provider of CityCell.

The minister said syndicated loan facility in case of big loans is a successful one and no investment is suffering for this system.

Managing Director of the PBTL Faisal Morshed Khan said in spite of the economic recession, CityCell's customer base grew by 200 per cent over the last one year. CityCell shareholders intend to invest over $100 million over the next 18 to 24 months to expand its network by more than 300 percent in 2004, he added.

"We should be in a position to provide the best customer service by bringing in new innovative technologies like soft-switch and other latest technologies as a part of the expansion of services," he said.

"These will help us provide more value added services like local inter-operator and international short messaging service and multimedia messaging service facilities allowing picture transfer, TV viewing and data transfer at a speed of up to 144 kbps," Faisal said.

CityCell has already expanded its services to more than 50 districts, he mentioned.

Acting Chairman of the PBTL Asghar Karim said the company is planning a major expansion in the next couple of years.

PBTL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Christopher William Maloy said the company's expansion progromme will help increase the customer base as well as improve service.

Acting CEO of the SCB SAA Masrur said the bank arranged three syndications for the PBTL. "Seven banks including the SCB participated in the first syndicated facility, which enabled the PBTL to introduce CDMA technology in Bangladesh and Dhaka-Chittagong microwave link project," he said.