VIRGIN boss Sir Richard Branson was in the North-East yesterday to open his latest call centre and announce plans to take on another 290 employees.

He is increasing the number of staff at Centre North-East, in Albert Road, Middlesbrough, to meet the growing demand for Virgin Mobile.

It is the fastest growing mobile network in the UK and has gained 250,000 customers in the past three months.

Sir Richard praised the people of the North-East for their friendliness, saying it was what attracted him and other investors to the region.

"You have a friendly outgoing people and we want to win awards for the best call centre and best customer interaction," he said.

"We have found that we get great feedback from the people who work in this region."

There are 70 call centres in the North-East, employing between 25,000 and 35,000 permanent and temporary staff.

Jobs range from customer services, IT support, finance, management and staff training in a range of industries from telecommunications and retail to banking and utilities.

Chief executive of regional development agency One NorthEast Mike Collier said: "The welcome investment in this new call centre in Middlesbrough is proof of the confidence in the region felt by national companies and will bring valuable employment to the Tees Valley."

Virgin Mobile in Middlesbrough is being managed by Garland Call Centres and opened last month.

At present, it employs 110 staff but yesterday's announcement means that number will rise to 200 by the end of the year, and to 400 by the end of next year.

Sir Richard said: "What we have to do is make the call centres in England compete with the call centres in India and Africa in terms of efficiency, because that is the real threat to this business.

"We have found English call centres have an edge over those overseas, and I hope that remains to be the case because an awful lot of people in the UK are employed in call centres today.

"You can only do so much on the Internet because people like to talk to a real person."