Cairo  - Egypt will accept bids for licenses for two new telecoms operators in the Arab world's most populous country, Minister of Telecommunications Tariq Kamal said Wednesday.

Egypt's telecoms regulatory body, the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), will formally announce the tender for the "triple-play" licenses to offer cable, telephone and internet services, on Thursday, Kamal told a Cairo conference.

He said the contracts are expected to bring in 1 billion dollars in investment each over five years.

The NTRA will invite international telecoms companies to submit bids for the licenses in cooperation with Egyptian partners by January 12, and to begin work by the second half of 2010.

The new operators will serve the residential compounds sprouting up across the country, particularly near Cairo, the Sinai resort city of Sharm al-Sheikh, and on Egypt's Mediterranean coast. The government would take 8 per cent of the profit from the projects.

State-owned Egypt Telecom, currently the only fixed-line operator in Egypt, will lose its monopoly once the new operators start their service.

The NTRA postponed an auction for the license to operate a second fixed-line telecoms company three times last year, citing turbulence in global telecommunications markets because of rising prices.

The new licenses would also increase competition in the Egyptian mobile-phone market. Three operators currently serve some 50 million Egyptian mobile-phone users.

Earlier in September, the Ministry of Telecommunications announced that Egypt now had 13.7 million internet users.

According to the Kuwait-based Global Investment House, the Egyptian telecoms sector has seen annual growth of 14-per-cent or better over the past two years. dpa