(Yicai Global) Feb. 8 -- China's three biggest internet firms Baidu Inc., Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., collectively known as BAT, are laying the foundations for long-term cooperation with leading telecoms firm China United Network Communications Group Co. through their strategic investments, its chairman says.

Collaboration between the three companies and the Beijing-based carrier could lead to the establishment of joint venture units in the future, online news outlet The Paper reported China Unicom Chairman Wang Xiaochu as saying at an extraordinary general meeting.

"In addition to business cooperation in the future, China Unicom's subsidiaries may establish joint ventures with strategic shareholders such as BAT to create capital cooperation from business cooperation," he said.

China Unicom implemented a reform plan last year to bring in strategic investors. Since then, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent have taken 3.30 percent, 2.04 percent and  5.18 percent stakes, respectively, through investments of CNY7 billion, CNY4.43 billion and CNY11 billion. The three giants are also newly represented on China Unicom's board.

The phone carrier has carried out a series of internet-based projects with the three major shareholders covering eight areas including cloud services, Big Data and New Retail.

"Business cooperation in cloud services between China Unicom and Alibaba and Tencent started on Feb. 1, and the company has four or five major orders related to this," Wang said. However, he also admitted that there is still room for improvement for China Unicom in areas such as business handling process and personnel training.

Wang is satisfied with the cooperation model used for cloud services between the companies. "If we receive CNY100 in revenue from cloud services, China Unicom makes CNY30," he said. Government contracts for cloud services are also a major opportunity for the carrier. Such contracts can only be carried out by state-owned enterprises, regulations dictate, and Unicom's in-house service Wo Cloud would be eligible for these projects.

One of the aims of the reform of state-owned enterprises is to improve efficiency, Wang stressed. In this area, state-owned enterprises have a lot to learn from their private counterparts. "After we downsized our organizational structure, we reduced our departments by 22 percent and management by 14.3 percent," he said.

The firm has conducted substantial reforms on a grassroots level and brought in a partial job-contracting scheme, Wang added. "We want to create a culture in which every member of staff has a responsibility and everyone is responsible in their job," he said, adding that it has had a positive effect on the company as a whole so far.

The company's cost control has greatly changed following the mixed ownership reform, Wang said. Capital injections from strategic investors have greatly altered financial costs change and marketing costs have also greatly changed. "This will be reflected in the future and we cannot disclose specific data now due to the relevant rules. The company's performance in January this year was very good and we are very confident of ourselves," he said.

Addressing the company's share price, which remains weak following the completion of the reform, Wang said, "The reaction to any change in a company and accompanying share price takes some time to see, investors should be patient."