France Telecom set up its first wholly-owned research and development (R&D) facility in China, trying to pave the way to its future expansion in the world's biggest telecom market.

The French telecom giant opened its Innovative Gardens yesterday in Beijing's Zhongguancun area, the so-called Silicon Valley of China.

The third R&D center of France Telecom in Asia after the previous two in Tokyo and New Delhi has recruited about 35 people.

The number of employees will increase to 100 by the end of next year.

"This allows us to become one of the first foreign telecom operators to set up an R&D centre in China," said Pascal Viginier, executive vice-president of France Telecom Group.

He said his group will invest 3 million euros (US$3.81 million) in two years into the centre.

The facility will focus on six areas: innovation terminals; Linux open-source technologies, speech and natural language processing. TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) and B3G (beyond the third-generation mobile communications system), telecom applications, value-added services and multimedia services, and monitoring of the technological development in China.

Herve Cayla, CEO of France Telecom's Beijing R&D center, said his company will work with partners in the area of TD-SCDMA, a 3G standard which China pushes aggressively and join the TD-SCDMA Forum soon.

Viginier said the establishment of the center was at the right time.

France Telecom set up a representative office in China in 1986.

He added the R&D organization will act as a good complementary to its 50-50 joint R&D centre with China Telecom, the country's biggest fixed line operator, in South China's Guangdong Province.

(China Daily November 2, 2004)