SHANGHAI, Aug. 9 -- TAIWAN-BASED Inventec Online Co Ltd said today that it planned to invest US$20 million to expand its manufacturing sites in Shanghai and hire 900 more employees for its software department.

Inventec, one of the top five notebook makers in the world, would increase the number of software employees from 100 to 1,000 to meet the increasing importance of the mainland market and to improve its overall manufacturing capabilities.

In 2001, the Inventec Group established Inventec Corporation in Caohejing High-tech Park.

Three years later, the company further expanded in Shanghai by establishing a site in Caohejing Export Processing Zone with a total investment exceeding US$420 million. The campus is home to one R&D Center, one logistics center and eight factories.

In 2005, it invested an additional US$120 million in building Factory Three with 120,000 square meters of floor space in Pudong New Area. This new assembly line is capable of manufacturing two million servers per year.