China Mobile launched ZONG, its international mobile brand, in Pakistan at the weekend promising to invest a further US$800 million in the business before the end of the year.

In a meeting with the Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani, China Mobile chairman and CEO Wang Jianzhou said the business was the operator’s first foreign investment anywhere in the world. China Mobile acquired Pakistan’s fifth largest mobile operator Paktel last year for US$460 million.

Jianzhou said China Mobile has already invested around US$800 million in the country by more than doubling the size of Paktel’s network to include around 2,500 base stations. It plans to install a further 5,180 sites by the end of the year, which would bring coverage to around 90% of the population and bring its total investment to around US$1.5 billion. The build-out will reportedly generate about 5,000 jobs in Pakistan.

“Based on our experiences in China, we have good understanding in emerging markets,” Jianzhou said. “We are very successful in fast growing economies and we would like to apply those practices here.” He added that ZONG would focus on delivering value-added services to Pakistani consumers such as mobile TV.