Lebanon's telecommunications minister, Charbel Nahas has said that a decision will be made by the end of the year on how to sell two mobile phone operators, which previous governments had hoped would raise as much as $7bn, Bloomberg has reported. Plans to sell the mobile phone companies were put on hold due to an 18-month political crisis that eased in May 2008 and later by the global credit crisis and parliamentary elections in June of last year. "The process of bringing in investors has different techniques and it can be an IPO or a mix that includes a strategic partner," Nahas said.