AMITELO Afrique SA., a subsidiary of AMITELO AG., is signing a co-operation agreement with "SOCIETE DES TELECOMMUNICATIONS DU MALI" (Sotelma), the state-owned telephone company in Mali. The aim of the co-operation is to provide the inhabitants of Mali with modern voice over IP (VoIP) and Internet services. For AMITELO Afrique SA., the contract is another milestone in opening up the region of West Africa. AMITELO Afrique is already operating in Senegal, the neighbouring country; a very lucrative project was implemented recently with PAMECAS Mutuel, the state bank of Senegal.

Mali is a country that is of particular importance to AMITELO because of its strategic location. The republic of Mali shares direct borders with Algeria, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. The co-operation with Sotelma also includes hubbing operations into the countries neighbouring Mali. Mali acts as an important node in this context, forwarding the incoming voice and data traffic from Europe to the neighbouring countries via the Sotelma network - AMITELO will be supplying the technology.

As a result of the co-operation with Sotelma, AMITELO is opening up a potential sales market in the wholesale field in Mali and the neighbouring countries amounting to more than 115 million people. AMITELO estimates that the monthly sales volume totals over EUR 1 million. Initial sales are to be generated as early as the third quarter of 2006. Network interconnection is already being planned and is to be implemented as soon as possible.

With about 12 million inhabitants and a gross national product of USD 13.56 billion (source: CIA fact book, situation in 2005), Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world - but demand for telecommunications services is increasing steadily even so. In addition to this, the almost four million employees in the country already represent an attractive market for the end-user products supplied by AMITELO.