Dell will site its first global IT support center outside of the United States at the center at Malaysia's high-tech hub of Cyberjaya,south of here. The company said the facility would be operational by the end of the year, with an initial 600 staff handling 24-hour IT support and maintenance.

The company will eventually hire 1,000 workers for the operations, said Kevin Rollins, CEO of Dell.

"The Cyberjaya facility not only shows our commitment to Asia and Malaysia but as we look at the global business ... it's going to help Dell's business conditions globally," he said.

Dell currently has 5,500 employees in Malaysia. The new IT center, which will provide internal support to Dell staff globally, is targeted to expand to about 1,000 employees during the next five years.

Its manufacturing plant in the northern city of Penang produces 9 million computers annually and Rollins said he hoped to act on its capacity to expand production.

"We have this capability to expand by another 30 percent to 40 percent at our manufacturing facility," he said.

Dell has been announcing expansion plans throughout Asia.

"We are growing in Asia,” Rollins said. “China is growing fast; we have announced a new factory in India, in Chennai."

Dell began operating in Malaysia in 1995 with a manufacturing and direct-sales business. It now produces desktops, workstations, notebooks, servers and storage products in Penang for customers in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as notebooks for the U.S. market.

In 2005, it accounted for 28 percent of Malaysia's electronic equipment exports and 7 percent of total national economic output.

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