UPDATE 1-Spanco Tele to start back-office services in India

(Adds details, share price)

MUMBAI, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Spanco Telesystems and Solutions Ltd (SPTS.BO) on Wednesday said it will launch back-office services in India through a new venture, Spanco BPO.

The company would invest more than 4 billion rupees in growing its presence across the country in the next two years, it said in a statement.

Spanco, which provides telecom integration and back-office services, plans to set up facilities in Chennai, Jaipur, Mysore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Noida.

Spanco BPO would start with 3,000 people, ramping it up to 5,000 in the first phase of expansion, it said.

It has already set up two customer support centres in Gurgaon and Mumbai with a capacity of 2,200 production seats. This capacity is expected to rise to 15,000 seats by the end of fiscal year 2008/09, it added.

"We believe this is the best time to enter the domestic BPO market given the huge emerging opportunities within the country," Executive Director and CEO of Spanco BPO, Sandeep Soni, said in the statement. Shares in the company were trading up 2.4 percent at 227 rupees in the firm Mumbai market.

(Reporting by Janaki Krishnan; editing by Sunil Nair)

((janaki.krishnan@reuters.com, +91-22 66369138; Reuters Messaging: janaki.krishnan.reuters.com@reuters.net)) Keywords: SPANCO TELESYSTEMS/BACKOFFICE

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