UK mobile communications service provider Vodafone inaugurated a HUF 600m (EUR 2.15m) regional customer service centre in Miskolc (NE Hungary) on Tuesday.

The centre is expected to start operating at full capacity with a staff of more than 300 from the middle of 2010.

Vodafone expects to employ 2,000 people in Hungary by the end of the year.

Minister in charge of the Prime Minister's Office Csaba Molnar said the government has established job preservation and job creation as priority objectives and will grant HUF 50bn to preserve 100,000 workplaces in 2009. Mr Molnar said investments creating 100-300 jobs are given a preference rather than the previously preferred 800-1,000 jobs.

Mr Molnar added that customer service centres have created 20,000 jobs in Hungary since 2002.

Vodafone Hungary CEO Gyorgy Beck said that the company chose to establish its new customer-service centre in Miskolc in order to expand its operations outside of Budapest and create jobs in regions such as northeast Hungary that suffer from high unemployment.

Vodafone specialists and the Northern Hungary Regional Retraining Centre will provide 100 selected candidates extensive training to work at the regional customer-service centre. More then 4,000 people, 60pc of whom are women, have applied for the jobs in Miskolc. The qualifications of the majority of these applicants fall into the middle and high range.