According to a report published by China Unicom (CHU), the parent companies of China Unicom and China Netcom will officially merge at the beginning of January 2009.

By then, all the claims and debts of the original China Unicom and China Netcom will be taken over by the new China Unicom Group. On October 15, 2008, China Unicom and China Netcom announced the merger of the two companies. However, the announcement clearly said that the merger targeted the listed companies of the two parties and the merger of their parent companies would be implemented later.

Compared with the parent companies of other major Chinese telecom operators, whose stakes are 100% owned by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of China's State Council, the situation of China Unicom is a little complicated, because its parent company, China United Telecommunications Co. Ltd., is jointly owned by SASAC and a few minority shareholders.

The report says that China Unicom's listed company has received the notice from China United Telecommunications, saying that the board of shareholders of China Unicom Group has approved plans to absorb China Netcom Group Corp. and take over all the claims and debts of China Netcom. If the merger is smoothly approved by China's monitoring department, it is expected to be put into effect in January 2009.