Alfa, one of two state-owned Lebanese mobile firms, expects to double the number of its subscribers after a long-delayed privatisation, its chairman said.

Marwan Hayek, who is also the CEO of Alfa, which is managed by Egypt's Orascom Telecom, said the Egyptian mobile company would be interested in entering the Lebanese telecom sector via the privatisation.

Privatising Alfa and MTC Touch has been discussed for years but wrangling among leaders, political instability and unfavourable market conditions have delayed the process.

"Today Alfa has got around 1.1 million customers ... with privatisation we foresee, to go and to exceed the 2 million subscribers mark in the next one or two years provided the right system is in place in terms of competition," Hayek told Reuters on the sidelines of an economic conference in Beirut.

"That will drive prices low that would enable us to reach the lowest segment of the base, so this is where growth would happen in the next couple of years (after privatisation)."

Hayek said Orascom Telecom would definitely bid for the mobile firms.

"The answer is straight yes. That's why we've been here since February 2009 because we want to be part of this process whenever it starts," he said.

Lebanon's 7-month-old national unity government says it is committed to privatisation but Lebanese officials doubt the process will take place before next year.

Hayek wants privatisation to "happen immediately", echoing OT chairman Naguib Sawiris, who was recently in Beirut.

"This sector has been almost dormant for the last couple of years, if not five or six years, so far without real development," Hayek said.

Sawiris said earlier this month that mobile phone penetration in Lebanon had reached about 60-70 per cent of the country's 4 million population.

Besides improving the efficiency of the moribund sector, which has among the highest mobile phone charges in the region, liberalising the industry is key to bringing down Lebanon's massive debt, projected to reach $55 billion this year.

Hayek declined to say to what extent Alfa's revenues would increase following privatisation but cited Bahrain's experience when it liberalised the market, in which revenues doubled within 3-4 years and penetration reached 140 percent of the population.

"So these are figures that we can easily think of in Lebanon once this process happens," he said. – Reuters