Saturday, February 25 2006 14:16 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will lay the foundation stone for the USD 150 million Nokia Mobile phone manufacturing facility at suburban Sriperumpudur on March 11, Union Communication and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran said here today (Feb 25 2006).

Inaugurating the Swedish telecom Major Ericsson's first RD Centre in India here, he said there was a race between Swedish and Finnish companies to set up their manufacturing units in India.

Nokia was one such Finnish company which had come forward to set up its unit near Chennai.

Chennai had become a major destination for many foreign IT companies due to availability of large-scale skilled technical personnel.

American IT Major Foxconn would be signing a MOU with the Tamil Nadu Government on March 3 for setting up a mobile handset manufacturing facility at Sriperumbudur, he said.

The company planned to invest USD 110 million in the project, which also envisaged setting up of plant for producing 'PCBs' and Research and Development centre there, he said adding over 10,000 persons would be employed by the company.