With 31,000 square metres of construction space, the new facility has become the largest overseas production facility for the US company's switching systems.

Lucent executives expect that a sizable share of its expanded annual production of 8 million communication lines will be exported to the international market.

"The communications industry today is growing very rapidly, both worldwide and in China, bringing abundant market opportunities," said Jason Chi, the newly appointed chairman for Lucent China.

"The new facility puts us in a better position to serve our customers by capitalizing on the opportunities in the marketplace," Chi said.

China's pending entry into the World Trade Organization and its opening of the telecom sector will create lucrative business opportunities for foreign companies. Lucent is ambitious to take the advantage to win a growing market share in the 1.2 billion people marketplace, Chi said.

According to recent official figures, there are more than 200 million phone subscribers in China, of whom about 65 million are mobile phone users and the remaining some 135 million are fixed line subscribers.

The figures make China the second largest telecom market in terms of subscribers in the world after the United States.

But the robust growth trend and the huge population base make China the most exciting market for communications industry in the world, creating intense competition among foreign telecom technology, equipment and solution providers.

To sharpen its competitive edge in the market, Lucent has turned its Qingdao facility into an integrated global centre of manufacturing, research and development, design, technical support and value-added solution providing services.

Of its 1,400 employees at the Qingdao joint venture, 300 are involved in research and development (R&D) and 200 more are expected to be added to the R&D force in the near future.

In addition to switching systems, the new facility will also produce multi-service access vehicles that provide regular telephone service as well as high-speed Internet access via digital subscriber line technology, and wireless communications equipment.

"By taking advantage of our next generation networking solutions, we believe we can help our customers compete more successfully in the fast-growing and changing marketplace," said Frank D'Amelio, president of Switching Solutions Group, Lucent Technologies.

(China Daily 10/16/2000)