Norwegian trade minister Trond Giske bats for Telenor

NEW DELHI: If telecom giant Telenor’s Rs 15,000 crore ($3 billion) investment in India were to be lost, it would be the “biggest ever loss of any Norwegian investment anywhere in the world”, Norway’s trade and industry minister Trond Giske said on Saturday.

“If this investment fails, ... I think also it will be fair to say that it will influence the view of India as an investment country,” he said.

Giske, who represents the Norwegian government on Telenor’s board, said that failure of the company’s investments will also have ‘political implications. “Telenor is not just any company. 54% of the shares are owned by Norwegian people through state and thus, it has even further political implications that such a company will be harmed,” he added.

The Norwegian government is pushing all diplomatic buttons to save Telenor, that country’s largest telecom operator that offers mobile services in India through Uninor, a joint venture with real estate developer Unitech Ltd, that lost all its licences following a Supreme Court judgment that annulled 122 mobile permits belonging to nine new entrants issued in 2008 by jailed telecom minister A Raja.

The apex court had ordered the government to distribute these permits through auction and asked the telecoms regulator Trai to devise an auction method. It had asked companies to stop operations by June 2, but recently gave them a breather till September 7.