Thiruvananthapuram: A global tender will be floated in two to three weeks to find a private partner for the country's first telecommunication equipment manufacturing cluster, the Rs.8 billion Telecom City, a top official said.

The new venture will come up on a 25-acre plot near Technopark, the information technology campus on the outskirts of the Kerala capital.

First conceived in 2006, the project has now received all necessary state government clearances in principle, the managing director of Small Industries Development Corporation (SIDCO) Saji Basheer told IANS Tuesday.

In October 2006, ITI Bangalore had inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with state-owned SIDCO to set up joint ventures to create a telecom equipment manufacturing cluster.

After preparation of detailed project report and getting all clearances, SIDCO is now ready to float a global tender, Basheer said.

"Already eight different groups have come forward to partner us, but the private partner will be decided only through a global tender," Basheer said, adding "it could even be a consortium".

The state government will have a 26 percent stake in the project and that would include the value of the land to be used for setting up the cluster, he said.

ITI Bangalore will provide complete technical support.

"Factories will be set up on 60 percent of the land while the rest will be used for business support activities," Basheer said.