Congo Republic has granted the country's fourth mobile phone operating license to Equateur Telecom Congo (ETC), a subsidiary of Bahrain-based telecommunications provider Bintel.

ETC, which will be competing with Zain, MTN and Warid for subscribers in the Central African nation, said Congo was a key country for the company's African strategy and the market there was growing.

'This new business will help develop our economy,' Thierry Lezin Moungalla, Congo's minister for post and telecommunications, said at a ceremony in Brazzaville to present the license.

On the African continent, ETC already operates in Gabon, Central African Republic and Somalia. - Reuters