Rome  - Italy's biggest bank, UniCredit, announced Thursday it plans to slash its workforce by 9,000 people as part of a new three-year business plan.

Linking the job cuts to its 2007 purchase of Rome-based bank Capitalia, Unicredit said in a statement that staffing in its western Europe operations, including Italy, Germany and Austria, needed to be "right-sized."

UniCredit CEO Alessandro Profumo was expected to provide further details when presenting the bank's 2008-2010 business plan in Vienna, later Thursday.

UniCredit also said in the statement that it expects its revenue to rise 6.7 per cent a year through 2010, as the group expands in eastern Europe.

The Italian bank, like many other international financial institutions, has been hit by the market fallout of the subprime- mortgage crisis in the United States. Analysts say it is trying to boost earnings by cutting costs and expanding in eastern Europe.

UniCredit also said it expects revenue growth of 19 per cent a year in central and eastern Europe, as it opens 1,300 new branches in the region through 2010. Since the acquisition of Poland's Pekao in 1999, UniCredit has opened branches in countries including Russia, Turkey, Hungary and Kazakhstan.

UniCredit has a presence in 23 countries, with over 40 million clients, 10,000 branches and approximately 180,000 employees as at June 2008, the company says.

The group operates in the following countries: Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Ukraine. (dpa)