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BT Group has become the first non-Chinese telecom to get a nationwide operating license in China, it tells Bloomberg. That will allow the British incumbent telecom to contract directly with Chinese customers and bill them in renminbi.
Two licenses are involved: a domestic IP-VPN license and a nationwide ISP license. The deal is subject to be scaled up, and it's thanks to cooperation between China and the UK, the company says. BT more fully enters a market led by state-owned telecoms China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom.