14 DAY TRIAL // About two weeks ago, Nokia was looking into the opportunities it had to build a new production facility, examining a number of locations and not making any official announcements.
After later having announced that it was considering, among others, Cluj, Romania as the location for opening the mobile factory and research center, now the Finish mobile phone manufacturer has stated that it has in fact chosen Cluj. According to Cluj prefect Marius Nicoara, Nokia is expected to invest somewhere around 200 million Euro, as previously estimated, in the project in order to build a technology center in the village of Jucu.
New jobs for about 15,000 people will be created with the opening of this factory. Local authorities are to provide the mobile phone manufacturer with land, road access and utilities for the 159-hectare industrial park, named Tetarom III. Also, the government is going to pay 33 million Euro for infrastructure improvements.
Today, the Cluj city council is expected to formally approve the project. Aside from the new plant they are aiming to open in Cluj, Nokia has also kept a research center in the city after their acquisition of the Data and PIM Synchronisation software for mobile devices provider Intellisync, that took place in February last year.
Among other future plans, Nokia also seems to be interested in acquiring Treo manufacturer Palm, which might boost its smartphone market share even more. Nokia currently leads the Smartphone market with 56 percent. Therefore, soon enough we'll get to see Nokia smartphones and maybe even Treo-like devices (if the acquisition of Palm takes place) manufactured in Cluj.