Elcoteq withdraws investment from euro 20 million Wroclaw telecoms plant

Finnish telecoms equipment producer Elcoteq has announced its withdrawal from the construction of a plant in Wroclaw. The announcement comes as a blow to plans by the local authorities to create a Silicon Valley in Wroclaw through the sale of land to IT, telecoms and science-oriented companies. Elcoteq had been planning to employ 1,000 workers at the euro 20 million plant, which was to produce equipment for UMTS and other cellular telephone networks. In the first half of the year, Elcoteq made its first-ever loss, after its major customers, Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel and Ericsson, placed fewer orders. Work on the Wroclaw plant will be halted as soon as the building is considered sellable. The euro 10 million production line that was to be installed there will instead be moved to an Elcoteq factory in Hungary. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 13) P.W.