China Mobile is to invest US$400 million to extend its network in Pakistan, said the company's CEO Wang Jianzhou in Boao, Hainan Province, yesterday.

Wang said the company will step up improving sales channels and building new brands in Pakistan next year, adding that a wireless data transmission system will be built in the country.

Pakistan boasts a population of 160 million with young people taking a great proportion and its telecommunication market is one of the fastest growing markets in the world.

China Mobile announced in January it had reached an agreement with Millicom International Cellular to buy the Luxembourg-based company's 88.86 percent share of Paktel Limited, Pakistan's fifth largest mobile phone operator.

The deal valued the Pakistani company at 460 million U.S. dollars.

That was the first time that China Mobile had acquired a foreign telecommunication company of "strategic significance".

Last year, the Chinese telecommunication giant acquired all shares of Hong Kong's fourth largest mobile operator, China Resources Peoples Telephone Co. Ltd. and a 19.9-percent stake in Phoenix TV.

Millicom is a global telecommunication investor, providing cellular telephone services to 12.8 million people in 17 emerging markets in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

"We hope to accumulate some experience in developing overseas market," said the CEO at the ongoing Boao Forum for Asia.