Following its announcement in May that it would invest over 80 billion RMB (US$11.8 billion) in the Guangdong province over the upcoming five year in cooperation with the Guangdong provincial government, China Mobile announced on August 5 that the company has completed the construction of its new southern base located in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, the Sina Tech News reported on August 5. The new base is schedule to kick off operations by year end 2009, helping China Mobile in terms of technology support and telecom service quality, according to the same source. China Mobile has earmarked an investment of 6.6 billion RMB (US$ 970.6 million; US$1=6.8 RMB) in building the base covering an area of 490,000 square meters. At the same time, China Mobile will consolidate the business support systems of its Pakistani and Hong Kong business units into the base while setting up a regional call center in the base to help accelerate the deployment of data processing centers across China.