Deutsche Telekom plans to keep up job cuts: CEO

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) plans to keep on cutting jobs and may consider small investments in emerging markets, its chief executive said in extracts of a newspaper interview released on Sunday.

"We're still not at the same efficiency level as other former monopolists. Therefore it is unavoidable -- and for some bitter too -- what we have had to do, and will have to do," chief executive Rene Obermann said in the interview for Monday's edition of the Financial Times Deutschland.

Deutsche Telekom, Germany's former state telecoms monopoly, has already announced that it will need to cut 32,000 jobs by the end of 2008.

Last year Obermann had to face down strikes to push through his cost-cutting program.

"I'm readying myself for resistance and controversy in 2008 too," he said. "I'm also conscious that I'll need to be steadfast after 2008 as well in order to come through this storm and carry on the path of reform."

Obermann was cautious about expansion into emerging markets.

"Everyone wants to get into emerging market mobile telephony markets. We, too, could imagine taking small steps to invest in such markets. But we have not settled on the technology," he said.

The head of Deutsche Telekom's T-Systems division, which serves large and medium-sized clients, told German newspaper Die Welt on Saturday that job cuts were needed in sales, service delivery and production.

(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Paul Bolding)