China's leading telecommunications equipment provider ZTE Corporation will build part of the national optical fiber network, the company told Xinhua on Tuesday.

ZTE, listed on the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock exchanges, clinched the deal with China Unicom, a major Chinese mobile telecom operator, after emerging the winner of an international bidding contest.

Under the deal, ZTE will be responsible for laying the optical lines to connect the cities of Shenyang and Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning Province to Qingdao and Yantai in east China's Shandong Province. It will also link Jinan in Shandong to Nanjing in Jiangsu Province.

ZTE also won the contract to provide transmission equipment for a network linking Guangdong Province in southern China to Hong Kong and Macao.

Company officials refused to disclose the value of the contracts.

As a leading telecommunications equipment provider founded in 1985, ZTE's business has expanded to more than 100 countries and regions, with the sales revenue of its main business reaching 21.58 billion yuan last year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 11, 2006)