The building of Nokia's China headquarters in Beijing will be completed and in use at the end of this year, said a source with Nokia China Investment Co. Ltd. on Friday.

 

The six-storey building, with a total floor area even larger than that of its world headquarters in Finland, will house 2,000 research and development (R&D) and management staff, said Shen Jian, communications manager of Nokia China.

 

The headquarters, R&D center inside and manufacturing base located in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area in Yizhuang, southeastern Beijing, will form the Nokia China Campus.

 

The headquarters building started construction in May 2006 with an investment of 450 million yuan (US$60 million).

 

The Nokia China Campus and the Xingwang Industrial Park, which is home to almost 20 other electronic companies led by Nokia, would form the most integrated mobile phone production chain in the world, said Shen.

 

The output value of the Xingwang park founded in 2000 in Yizhuang, exceeded 100 billion yuan in 2006, which accounted for half of the total output value of the Chinese capital's electronic manufacturing industry. More than 45,000 people work at the industrial park.

 

China has become the largest market of Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, whose sales and export volume in China exceeded 10 billion Euros (US$13 billion) in 2006.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 19, 2007)