Taiwanese Foxconn recently announced its plan to inject up to US$500 million in a new mobile phone plant in Huizhou, China over the next five years, in a bid to alleviate the production pressure at its Shenzhen plant, which is already operating at full capacity.

Foxconn stated that over next two years it will initially invest about US$100 million in this new plant, which is scheduled to begin construction in January 2008, to be completed and operational by the third quarter of 2008, Taiwan's Economic Daily News reported. The number of employees is expected to build up from 10,000 to over 40,000 eventually.

The new plant is planned to concentrate on the production of 2G and 3G mobile phones. Further details regarding its capacity were not yet disclosed. However, the new plant is estimated to have a capacity on the same scale as Foxconn's Shenzhen plant, according to the same source. Foxconn expects to establish the Huizhou plant as the company's foremost manufacturing site in southern China.

Aside from this new facility, Foxconn also has mobile phone EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Services) operations in Shenzhen, Tianjing, Beijing, Brazil, Finland, Mexico, Hungary, and India.