China's second-largest fixed-line operator Netcom reveals it has twice as much debt as its bigger rival China Telecom.

Some analysts, who attended a meeting with the company last week, say Netcom was carrying debts of 70 billion yuan in December last year against shareholders' equity of 43 billion yuan.

South China Morning Post reports that operationally, Netcom recorded a net loss of 11 billion yuan or 1.3 billion US dollars last year.

Netcom is planning to list eight of its business units and provincial networks in Hong Kong and the United States to raise up to 1 and a half billion US dollars.

(CRI.com September 8, 2004)