MOSCOW. March 7 (Interfax) - Vimpelcom , one of Russia's top three mobile phone companies, will focus on the development of its 3G networks in 2013 in order to catch up to its rivals, as well as on launching LTE 4G services in seven regions of the country, including Moscow.

These plans will require the company to ramp up capital expenditures, which are expected to grow to 22% of revenue in 2013, Vimpelcom CEO Anton Kudryashov said at a press conference on Wednesday. The company invested 50.7 billion rubles, or 18% of revenue, in its networks in 2012.

Vimpelcom plans to begin more rapid development of LTE services in 2014-2015, while this year it will limit itself to commercially launching LTE in Moscow and license launches in six other regions in order to meet the requirements of the frequency tender it won in July 2012.

Vice president for corporate strategy Stanislav Oleinik told reporters that 15 billion rubles of investment in LTE, the minimum annual investment required by the license, will be sufficient for Vimpelcom in 2013.

Highest capex in decade

"We have managed to implement a substantial investment plan in a number of areas and have mapped out a program for reducing our lag behind competitors in the area of network development, mapped out and approved a capital investment plan that will be the largest in scale in the past ten years and the largest in terms of the capex/revenue ratio in the last seven years," Kudryashov said.

Earlier in an interview with Kommersant, Kudryashov estimated the lag in Vimpelcom's investments behind its rivals that had accumulated during the crisis at $2 billion, but said Vimpelcom would require only a third of this investment to catch up thanks to lower construction costs.

In 2012, Vimpelcom increased the number of 3G base stations by 3,500 or 22% to 18,600, and expanded its 2G network by 12% to 36,600 base stations. The company also expanded its trunk network by 16,000 km to 136,300 km (not including 43,000 km of backbone local networks).

This year the company plans to increase the number of 3G base stations by another 30% or 5,700, and have 80% of its 3G stations hooked up to high-speed channels by the end of the year.

Vimpelcom intends to focus invest on nine key regions that generate 60% of its revenue and EBITDA, vice president for technology Igor Parfyonov said. In addition to expanding its 3G network, he said the operator will focus in 2013 on developing its transport network, expanding trunk lines by 27,000 km.

Vimpelcom will conduct about 40% of new construction jointly with other telecom companies, Parfyonov said.

The growth of investment compared to 2012 will not require Vimpelcom to make any major changes in financial policy, chief financial officer Dmitry Afinogenov said.

"There will be more money [spent on investment], but not dramatically more [