SHANGHAI, CHINA - China will issue long-awaited third-generation mobile phone licences on Wednesday, a government official said, a move that will see tens of billions of dollars invested in new networks.

"We will issue the licences today," Wang Lijian, a spokesman for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology told AFP Wednesday morning, without giving more details.

Li Yizhong, the industry and information technology minister, said last month that market leader China Mobile would get a licence for TD-SCDMA, China's domestically developed 3G standard.

He said China's number two mobile operator, China Unicom, would receive a licence for the WCDMA standard and China Telecom will handle CDMA 2000, proven international standards that require additional charges to foreign developers.

Third-generation, or 3G, networks enable advanced services such as wide-area wireless calls, web surfing and video.

Li has said the carriers were expected to invest about US$41 billion in 3G networks over the next two years, with at least US$29 billion to be spent in 2009.

The government has said the spending that will accompany the launch of 3G services as an important part of efforts to battle the slowdown caused by the global economic turmoil. --AFP