OREANDA-NEWS. Open Joint Stock Company "MegaFon" ("MegaFon", or the "Company") (LSE: MFON), a leading Russian telecommunications operator, is pleased to announce that it has signed a Financing Mandate Agreement with China Development Bank Corporation ("CDB") under which the latter will act as the Mandated Lead Arranger for a facility in the amount of 500Mn US Dollars.

The signing took place in the presence of the Prime Ministers of the Russian Federation and of the People's Republic of China (PRC) during the official visit of the Prime Minister of the PRC to Moscow.

The new CDB financing will be used for the development of the Company's mobile networks through the purchase of equipment and services from Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd ("Huawei"), one of the world's leading providers of technology and services to telecoms industry.

Ivan Tavrin, Chief Executive Officer, said: "This financing is a another milestone in our long-term relationship with CDB. It underlines MegaFon's high credit quality and the trust that our partners place in us as we continue to enjoy strong access to international capital markets as well as focus on enhancing of our relationships with lenders and equipment suppliers globally".

Gevork Vermishyan, CFO of MegaFon, commented, "CDB has continuously been a fundamental, long-term partner bank to us which has put its balance sheet in form of seven facilities for MegaFon since 2001 to fund procurement of equipment and services from Huawei. With the new Financing Mandate Agreement we see further expansion of our successful cooperation with both CDB and Huawei".