(Associated Press via NewsEdge) Nokia announced deals worth more than 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) with Chinese customers, sending the company's shares higher.
The contracts, for the whole of 2006, were signed at a meeting of European Union and Chinese business leaders attended by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his Finnish counterpart, Matti Vanhanen.
Deliveries began earlier this year, including for digital network equipment for China Mobile valued at some 580 million euros ($735 million) and mobile phones worth more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.9 billion) for Chinese national mobile phone distributor PTAC.
Nokia's shares gained 3% to 15.55 euros ($19.76) on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.
'The signing of these two important agreements is a milestone event for Nokia's operations in China,' Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said.
'We set up our operations more than 20 years ago with a handful of employees and today we employ over 6,700 people in China,' Kallasvuo said.
Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, has so far invested more than 3.3 billion euros ($4.2 billion) in China.
It has increasingly turned its attention to Asia from Europe, where mobile phone levels are reaching saturation point.
Nokia estimates that by 2008, the number of global mobile phone owners will increase to 3 billion, with some 80% of the growth in the emerging markets of China, India, Southeast Asia and Africa where penetration levels are still relatively low.
Last year, China became Nokia's largest single market, overtaking the United States, with net sales growing 28% to 3.4 billion euros ($4 billion).
© 2006 The Associated Press
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