The government is to make €10mln available for new mobile phone numbers. Making the announcement this morning, junior economic affairs minister Frank Heemskerk said the move will increase the number of mobile phone numbers in the Netherlands to 60 million.

This is necessary because of growing consumer demand, said Heemskerk. The new numbers, which will begin with the digits 068, are expected to meet demand until 2012. In total there are over one billion telephone numbers in the Netherlands.