Sergei Aslanyan, president of Sitronics, disclosed that Sitronics will sign a formal agreement with China's ZTE in late May for a joint venture between the two.

Aslanyan said at a press conference that headway had been made on their negotiation with ZTE, and Sitronics would own the controlling rights of the JV, while ZTE would take considerable part of stake that is beneficial to its own development.

Aslanyan said that Sitronics would also set up a production base in China in the coming eight to nine months and put the base into operation within one year. In addition to producing some telecom equipment, the base would also manufacturer double-card mobile phones and all of these products would be mainly sold on the Chinese market.

In 2007, Sitronics' parent company Sistema signed an agreement with ZTE on the establishment of the JV. According to their agreement, OAO Mobile TeleSystems, a mobile subsidiary of Sistema, would cooperate with ZTE on the third generation network in regions outside of Russia, while its fixed network affiliate OAO Comstar United TeleSystems would purchase all the equipment it needed from ZTE.

Sitronics is a member of Russia's AFK Sistema. It mainly specializes in electronics products, computer, communications equipment and software.