"I would really like to see the shares as people's shares... it should be something that everyone can buy the shares. I don't want to see all the shares go to institutional investors. I want to see individuals and people of Bangladesh buy the shares," Grameenphone Chief Executive Officer Erik Aas said in an interview with The Daily Star yesterday on the sidelines of the investors' conference in Dhaka.

"We feel it is right time for listing. I believe that it will be good for Bangladesh and stock exchanges if Grameenphone joins the capital market," Aas added.

Aas on May 7 visited the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) amid speculations as to when Grameenphone will list on the bourse.

In April, Telenor, the main shareholder in Grameenphone, expressed its desire to publicly list the company.

In a statement Telenor's chief executive Fredrik Baksaas said: "Public listing will bring more Bangladeshi ownership into Grameenphone."

Telenor, the Norwegian telecom operator, owns 62 percent of Grameenphone, and Grameen Telecom 38 percent.

Aas said both the Grameen Telecom and Telenor are evaluating the options of listing on the stock exchanges.

"If you look at the capital market today it is not weak but it is small. Shares of telecoms companies will probably strength the capital market significantly," he said.

Commenting on the launch of Warid Telecom, Aas said the mobile market is challenging in Bangladesh, as the tariff structure is one of the lowest in the world.

"I welcome Warid in the market," said the boss of Grameenphone, the market leader that reached 10.76 million subscribers at the end of 2006 with the addition of 5.22 million users in a year.

Bangladesh's sixth mobile phone operator UAE-based Warid Telecom launched its commercial operation yesterday, aiming to gain 20 million subscribers within three years.

Warid, a GSM-based cellular operator, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Warid Telecom International LLC, part of an Abu Dhabi-based consortium.

On allegations of a huge amount of profit repatriation from Bangladesh, the Grameenphone CEO said in the last 10 years of operations only $ 43 million was repatriated to foreign shareholders as dividend against the investment of $1.2 billion.

"Besides, in ten years we spent $700 million on procuring equipment and gave dividends worth $45 million in local currency to local and multinational investors," Aas added.

The number of cell phone users in Bangladesh reached 22 million at the end of 2006.

The growth in 2006 was 120 percent as the number of mobile phone subscribers was 9.26 million in 2005, according to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).

Telenor, Telekom Malaysia (TM), Orascom, and SingTel are the other foreign companies who have invested in the mobile phone sector in Bangladesh.

Besides Grameenphone and Warid, other market players are AKTEL, Banglalink, CityCell and state-run Teletalk.