OREANDA-NEWS. May 31, 2010. The Ericsson plant in Tallinn that is about to start manufacturing 4G data networking equipment in large numbers soon could bring Estonian businesses into its supply chain, Estonia's Minister of Economy Juhan Parts said.

He said small and medium sized companies from Estonia could be involved in logistics related to the Ericsson manufacturing plant.

The Ericsson plant on Tuesday delivered to the Estonian mobile operator EMT the first universial 4G network base station manufactured in Estonia that can handle 2G, 3G and 4G data communications alike. Starting from mid-August the plant will be able to make one such unit every five minutes.

Accepting the delivery, CEO of EMT Valdo Kalm told BNS that EMT is planning to launch its 4G commercial network at the first opportunity after the government has distributed the corresponding frequencies.

The CEO of Ericsson Eesti, Veiko Sepp, said that the base stations manufactured at the plant mainly will go to Europe, but also the United States and Africa.

According to information published earlier, planned investments in the Ericsson plant in Tallinn total 100 million kroons (EUR 6.4 mln) this year.

The Finnish electronics manufacturer Elcoteq last summer sold most of its Tallinn manufacturing capacities to Ericsson in a transaction valued at 470 million kroons. Also most of the Elcoteq employees were hired by Ericsson.

Ericsson Eesti now employs 1,429 people, of them 1,237 at the manufacturing plant.