An economic daily says the government has decided to award the third generation mobile phone licence to a foreign telecom company.

Thursday's edition of the Korea Economic Daily quoted a senior official at the Information and Communication Ministry. The official said his ministry plans to give the licence to a consortium led by a foreign investor and the foreign firm wants to take up to a 40 percent stake in the consortium.

The official did not identify the foreign company, but the reports said it's likely to be Canada's Telesystem International Wireless, which is now considering joining a consortium led by Hanaro Telecom... the nation's second-largest broadband Internet service provider.

The government plans to grant the license for high-speed mobile phone service based on Qualcomm's CDMA-2000 by the end of May at the latest.