Nokia plans to locate its second global 3G (third-generation) equipment manufacturing site in China, making it the latest in a stream of major mobile telecoms gear makers–including Siemens and Nortel Networks–to build a 3G manufacturing facility in the country.

Currently, Nokia manufactures 3G base stations only in its home country of Finland. Nokia will locate the new 3G base station manufacturing facility in Suzhou, where it already has a 3G research and development center. The center employs more than 100 engineers, and is said to be expanding.

In the run-up to the 3G roll-out in China, global gear makers are moving their manufacturing facilities to the country. Last year, Siemens announced it will build Shanghai into its second global 3G WCDMA manufacturing base. The firm has committed US$30 million to expanding its manufacturing capacity in Shanghai.

Nortel in June signed a memorandum of understanding with China Putian Corp to form a joint venture to research, develop and manufacture 3G products based on TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access) and WCDMA. Nortel did not disclose how much it will invest in the joint venture.