MOBILE phone firm Orange is looking at further expansion in the North-East - as well as having recently announced more than 1,500 new jobs.

Its new regional call centre at Cobalt Business Park, North Shields, which was confirmed yesterday, will take the number of North-East Orange employees to almost 5,500.

The firm, which says it likes the region because of the quality of staff it employs, may have further good news in the near future.

A spokeswoman said: "We are going to expand further but we can't reveal any of these plans yet."

The North-East employees make up half the company's staff nationwide and Orange, which has operations at Peterlee, Darlington, and on North Tyneside, is one of the region's biggest employers.

The new building, next to an existing Orange centre, is due to open in August 2001.

The company has more than seven million customers and covers 99 per cent of the UK population.

It has the largest and fastest-growing digital mobile phone network in the UK.

The company's Cobalt 5 call centre, which employs 1,500 people, opened in March. The firm has been in the North-East since 1994.