California-headquartered Hitachi Global Storage Technologies plans invest 500 million US dollars to create a disk drive mega manufacturing center in Shenzhen, a coastal city in south China's Guangdong province.

The project is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2004, CRIENGLISH.com reported Tuesday.

Hitachi GST expects the manufacturing center to employ nearly 7,000 people in its first phase.

The new facility is expected to start production of 3.5-inch disk drives in the fourth quarter of 2005.

CRIENGLISH.com