PARIS: Huawei will build its first European manufacturing plant in France, the chairman said on Thursday, as the Chinese telecom giant seeks to ease worldwide concerns stoked by US charges that Beijing could use its equipment for spying.

Liang Hua said Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, would invest 200 million euros ($217m) in the first phase of setting up the mobile base station plant. He said it would create 500 jobs.

Huawei, which denies its equipment poses a security risk, is at the centre of a storm pitting the United States against China over 5G, the next generation mobile technology. Europe has become a major battleground.

“This site will supply the entire European market, not just France’s,” Liang told a news conference. “Our group’s activities are worldwide and for this we need a global industrial footprint.”

5G technology is expected to deliver a huge leap in the speed and capacity of communications and an exponential spike in connections between the billions of devices, from smart fridges to driverless cars, that are expected to run on 5G networks.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2020