China has no plan so far to split its second largest mobile carrier, China Unicom, and the Chinese government has not made any plan to regroup its telecommunication companies, a senior official here said.

It has been speculated since late Jan. that China is going to split China Unicom and merge its GSM business into China Mobile and CDMA business into China Netcom.

"Media reports are groundless and irresponsible," said Du Yuanquan, spokesman with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). These speculations have brought a bad effect on the stable development of China Unicom.

Regrouping of state-owned companies is a substantial measure to push forward the restructuring of the national economy. Du said Last Friday that the SASAC is making in-depth investigations to modify concerned regulations on regrouping of state-owned companies.

"These efforts are to reduce redundant investment in state-owned assets and increase competitive ability of state-owned companies in the market," acknowledged Du.

He said the regrouping of state telecom companies concerns the growth of China's telecom industry and there is no scheme at present.

Analysts say China would finish its regrouping of telecom industry before it made policy on the third-generation mobile telecommunication technology. As China Unicom already has two telecom networks, which are respectively GSM network and CDMA network, it might be over-burdened in forging another one or two 3G networks when the license for 3G is issued.

With the regrouping, China would have fewer telecom operators and hopes to issue fewer 3G licenses and pay less for the network construction to avoid redundant investment, analysts say.

Many telecommunications experts have showed their concern that the regrouping might drag China's telecommunication industry back into the state of monopoly before the establishment of China Unicom.

China Unicom was set up 11 years ago to do away with monopoly and bring competition in the industry. With net assets of 89.8 billion yuan (about 10.85 billion US dollars) and annual income of72.56 billion yuan (some 8.77 billion US dollars), China Unicom has grown to be one of the major competitors in China's telecommunication market.

The company has become the world third largest mobile carrier, the second largest CDMA operator and the only Chinese mainland telecom operator listed both in Hong Kong and New York.