Huawei praise to tune of $400m
Chinese technology juggernaut Huawei plans to splash out hundreds of millions of dollars in New Zealand after praising our approach to global business.
Founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei met with Prime Minister Bill English in Wellington yesterday to discuss its plans, which the company said would see it spend $400 million in New Zealand over the next five years.
Worldwide, Huawei employs more than 170,000 staff – almost as many as Apple and Google combined.
Spokesman Andrew Bowater said Huawei’s spending plans were in part ‘‘aspirational’’. Some $250m would be accounted for by its intention to source more products and services locally.
But Bowater said the company also intended to build a cloud-computing data centre – possibly in connection with a local partner – in New Zealand in about two years, and would expand its research centre in Wellington while opening another in Christchurch.
The company intends to expand its research centre in Wellington.
Huawei employs about 150 staff in New Zealand.
Ren said in a statement that ‘‘New Zealand’s open and fair trade environment’’ and its emphasis on developing new technology had facilitated Huawei’s ongoing commitment.
The expanded Wellington research lab, based at Victoria University, will investigate technologies such as 5G cellphone networks, ‘‘big data’’ and the potential of internet-connected devices, or the so-called ‘‘internet of things’’.
Huawei said it would offer 100 undergraduates the opportunity to travel to China for technology and cultural exchanges over the next five years.
It would also open a regional office in Wellington.
Huawei has become a poster child for China’s modernising economy, despite efforts by the United States and Australia to constrain the company’s growth in their markets, citing national security concerns.
Those concerns came to a head in 2012 when the US House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee urged US firms to stop doing business with Huawei and fellow Chinese firm ZTE, saying China could use their equipment to spy and for cyber attacks.
The same year, the Australian government barred Huawei from involvement in its A$37 billion National Broadband Network initiative.
The obstacles have not been mirrored in New Zealand, where Huawei has been a supplier to Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees. It has also supplied Enable and Ultrafast Fibre, the firms building the ultrafast broadband network in Christchurch and the lower North Island.
Huawei supplied and partly financed 2degrees’ mobile network.
In 2015, it also provided the technology for Vodafone’s $22m cable broadband upgrades in Wellington and Christchurch.