On December 15, 2003the executive board of Svyazinvest approved the investment program for the development of Siberia Telecom’s GSM standard cellular business.  Cellular exposure is one of the company’s top priorities. 

The investment program is expected to last four years, until 2008.  According to the program, Siberia Telecom will invest $60 million in its cellular business in 2004.  Sources of investment include the company’s own funds, bank loans an financial leasing, including secured capital funding. 

The plan is to allocate funds to acquire base facilities, switching equipment, advanced equipment used to phase in value-added services, develop billing facilities and expand the sales and mobile service network.  At present work is under way to extend the range of cellular services, and in the future subscribers of Siberia Telecom may have the opportunity to use GPRS, MMS and other services.

Siberia Telecom and its subsidiaries hold licenses to provide licenses to provide cellular telecom services in a region inhabited by over 10 million people.  The company’s wholly-owned subsidiaries include ZAO Baikalvestcom (Irkutskregion) and ZAO Eniseitelecom (Krasnoyarskterritory), which rank among the top 10 leaders in Russian telecom by the number of their subscribers.  Based on company data as of the beginning of December the number of cellular telecom users connected to Siberia Telecom is over 440,000.