Huawei plans to set up a network equipment manufacturing plant in Chennai, a city in southern India, before the end of 2010.

The spokesperson from Huawei did not reveal the investment scale of the new plant, but Huawei previously announced that it will invest USD500 million in India in the next five years, including expenditures on factory constructions and R&D.

At the beginning of September 2010, Huawei gained a 3G equipment supply contract from Indian Tata Teleservices, which represented the Indian government's lifting of bans on Chinese telecom equipment. Due to security issues, the Indian government started blocking telecom equipment made by foreign makers from December 2009. The government also published a list of Chinese telecom equipment makers, whose products were not allowed to be imported by Indian telecom operators before the implementation of a new network security standard.

The spokesperson said that with the new plant in India, Huawei expects to launch new products in the market more rapidly while saving transportation costs.

At present, Huawei has about 2,000 employees in its research and development center in India's Bangalore. In addition, the company has 4,000 sales and technology support staff in India.