Ericsson (China) has signed a contract to supply China Unicom with another 26 million US dollars of equipment.

The equipment will be used to expand the capacity of the GSM (Global System of Mobile phones) in east China's Anhui Province to 500,000 lines by early next year.

Ericsson will supply south China's Guangdong Province with exchange equipment and a power system by the end of this year to connect the wireless and wire telecom network to the GSM, said a manager with China Unicom.

Unicom, which has registered more than three million subscribers since its establishment in 1994, is now the second largest operator of cellular phones in China. So far the two parties have signed nine contracts involving 180 million US dollars.

Ericsson, headquartered in Sweden, is a main supplier in the international telecom industry. Some 3,800 Chinese work in its 23 offices and eight joint ventures in the country.