British Telecom has announced plans to enlarge its investment in China and initiate a series of market expansion.

    Franco is Barrault, president of BT International, has told local media that BT would invest at least US$70 million in the coming years to set up two R&D centers in China which would be located in Dalian and Shanghai, respectively.

    The Dalian R&D Center will provide software development, service delivery and a range of support service to BT, serving the company's clients in China, South Korea and Japan. The Shanghai Center will be engaged in the development of new services and products and it will be another major R&D center for BT besides the company's existing R&D centers in Britain, Malaysia and India. It is estimated that the two new centers will cost about US$100 million.

    Though it entered Chinese market in 1995, right now BT only had two representative offices in the country, which are located in Beijing and Shanghai. BT has entered cooperation with China Telecom and China Netcom and it will provide communications service with China Netcom for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.