APEC countries
Trade ministers from the 18 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies endorsed the completion of a mutual recognition arrangement for telecom equipment conformity assessment covering about US$45 billion in trans-Pacific trade.
China
Glenayre Technologies Inc., United States, has activated what it says is the first narrowband Personal Communications Services system in China. It has begun a trial system with the Fujian Provincial Posts and Telecommunications Administration for wireless voice messaging in the city of Xiamen.
Shanghai Bell Telephone Equipment Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has agreed to manufacture and sell InnoWave Tadiran Telecom Wireless Systems Ltd.’s (Israel) FH-CDMA/TDMA Wireless Local Loop system in China.
HOng Kong
AT&T Corp. has sold its entire 16.5-percent stake in SmarTone, a provider of cellular and Personal Communications Services in Hong Kong. The shares were sold to institutional investors, according to the Financial Times.
Hong Kong’s Truly Telecommunications Co. Ltd. will design and produce its first GSM wireless phones in cooperation with Chinese design specialist Telecom Technology Centre and using IBM Corp. subsidiary CommQuest Technologies’ GSM-XL chipsets, said CommQuest. CommQuest also has entered into an agreement with South Korean electronics manufacturer Sewon for the production of wireless handsets using CommQuest GSM chipsets.
Japan
L.M. Ericsson and Toshiba Corp. have agreed to merge Ericsson Toshiba Telecommunication Systems K.K. with Nippon Ericsson K.K. in Japan, announced Ericsson. The merger date was effective 1 July.
Taiwan
Motorola’s Messaging Systems Products Group announced that Taiwan-based Ginjet Technology Corp. has licensed the FLEX protocol to develop a series of paging encoders for testing pagers.
