FARSTA, Sweden -- As a step towards ensuring TeliaSonera´s competitiveness and establishing a cost level that enables TeliaSonera Sweden to offer the market value-for-money products and services, management of TeliaSonera Sweden have initiated discussions with the personnel organisations with respect to redundancies. Discussion is under way, and negotiations will take place this spring. Redundancies relate to decisions in three areas:

This process is part of the efforts to realize synergies and make stand-alone improvements at TeliaSonera Sweden.In the various phases of implementing these decisions, redundancies will occur inasmuch as the entire organisation in Sweden will be affected over the long term. The first phase will affect staff functions, administration and development resources and the first measure will be to reduce the number of external consultants and personnel under contract. Nevertheless, TeliaSonera´s own personnel will also be affected. It is the intention to be ready with the first phase before summer, and to arrive at an overview and a developed plan for the process by that time. In collaboration with the personnel organisations, the intention is to utilise the good experiences from earlier redundancy projects, and it is intented to carry out the process with respect for everyone involved. The already established Telia Resource & Adjustment Programme will be an important factor in facilitating for the employees who are affected. "We have to secure our competitiveness and our capability to offer our customers value-for-money products", says Marie Ehrling, President of TeliaSonera Sweden. "Thus it is important that we take the consequences of the changes that we have decided to implement." In a separate release:TeliaSonera Finland has today initiated the formal employee/employer negotiations, which is estimated to materialize in a reduction of approximately 400 jobs. The negotiation processes will affect the entire profit center TeliaSonera Finland excluding the customer call centers. The process is expected to be ended in May 2003, after which the final outcome of this process can be seen. TeliaSonera Sweden has today also initiated discussions with the trade unions about efficiency measures in Sweden. Following the merger between Telia and Sonera in December 2002, and the new division of responsibilities within the Group, an extensive overhaul has been made of the profit center TeliaSonera Finland in order to establish the number of jobs needed in the segment oriented working approach and in order to achieve a competitive cost level throughout the company. The number of jobs in Finland will be reduced following a need to reduce overlap. In connection with this TeliaSonera Finland has today initiated negotiations with the trade unions to establish how many people will be affected by the job reductions. The efficiency measures are part of both the synergies following the merger and the stand-alone improvement possibilities in TeliaSonera Finland. The introduction of a customer-driven structure, organized through the business segments Consumer, Business and Large Corporate instead of the previous product-oriented business segments has significantly improved the efficiency of the company. Several synergy decisions have been taken during the first months of integration between Telia and Sonera, such as the new corporate and competence center structure."In the highly competitive Finnish telecom market it is important that we continuously ensure that we have a cost level that is competitive and in relation to the level of service and added value that customers expect", says Anni Vepsäläinen, President of TeliaSonera Finland.TeliaSonera AB