Sriperumbudur: Perlos Telecommunication and Electronic Components, a subsidiary of Finnish mobile phone casings manufacturer Perlos Corp, has started production here Thursday.

Inaugurating the Indian plant, Matti Virtanen, president and CEO of Perlos Corp, said the plant had sufficient space to double production.

Built at an outlay of $30 million inside the Nokia Telecom Park, a special economic zone, Perlos' plant has a capacity to make six million instruments every month.

Initially, the plant will make outer casings and other mechanics for Nokia's low-end models and later enlarge its product and customer base.

The Indian plant is the company's eighth in the world. The company has closed down production in Finland and has shifted its major production base to China.

After China, the Indian plant is of strategic importance for Perlos Corp as the mobile handset market is seeing exponential growth in Asia.

According to Virtanen, around 12 percent of the company's production will come from India this year. The Chinese plants will cater to 58 percent of the company's production needs, followed by Hungary at 13 percent, Brazil 6 percent and Mexico 10 percent.

In 2000 Perlos Corporation started manufacturing in Asia at its Chinese plant with a floor space of 8,000 sq ft. In seven years time the company has increased its floor space in Asia to 1.15 lakh sq ft, nearly 70 percent of its total manufacturing space worldwide. The company employs 5,700 people in Asia out of its total 8,900 worldwide workforce.

The Indian plant employs 770 people out of which nearly 40 percent are women.

Speaking at the inaugural function, Finnish Ambassador to India Asko Numminen said bilateral relations between India and Finland is growing stronger. He said Finland invites Indian investments in the information technology sector.