WARSAW, Nov 27, 2007 (AFP) - The Chinese information technology group Lenovo announced Tuesday it would build an assembly plant in Poland that would turn out five million personal computers a year.

Lenovo said the new plant in the southwestern Polish city of Legnica would be up and running by September 2008 and would cost around 20 million dollars.

It said the plant would eventually employ 1,000 people and that its output would be destined for the European, Middle Eastern and African markets.

Lenovo officials said that while the plant would initially produce desktop PCs, it could eventually be adapted to assemble laptop computers.

Last week the US IT giant Dell inaugurated a computer assembly plant in Lodz, in central Poland.