On Sunday, Ethiopia signed an USD800 million contract with ZTE, China's multinational telecommunications equipment and systems corporation. The agreement would expand the country's mobile phone infrastructure. It would also launch a high-speed 4G broadband system in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital city, and a 3G service across the rest of the nation.

ZTE is currently the second biggest telecom equipment manufacturer in China. Ethiopia's deal with ZTE was half of the USD1.6 billion project that was divided with the second biggest telecom equipment producer in the world, Huawei technologies Co Ltd. Last month, Huawei already signed the contract.

According to the officials of Ethiopia, ZTE and Huawei, the two Chinese companies would give low-interest loans to the African country. The agreement was called vendor financing.

"The expansion is vital to attain Ethio Telecom's objective of increasing telecom service access and coverage across the nation, as well as to upgrade existing network to new technology," Ethio Telecom's acting chief executive officer, Andualem Admassie, said in a speech.