Sarawak to stick with Huawei

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(From left) Morshidi, Abang Johari and Dr Chan at the main table awaiting the breaking of fast.

KUCHING: The Sarawak government will continue its collaboration with Huawei despite recent restrictions by the United States of America government on the China telecommunications giant.

Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said Sarawak’s digital economy development, which includes 5G technology, would still go on and the collaboration with Huawaei would not be affected.

“Our side is not affected. We will carry on with the collaboration,” he told reporters after the breaking of fast hosted by Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA), Centre of Technical Excellence Sarawak (Centexs) and Sarawak Centre of Performance Excellence (Scope) at a leading hotel here yesterday evening.

Huawei signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on digital economy collaboration with the Sarawak government on April 4, 2017.

Based on previous reports, the partnership aims to explore the collaboration on State Digital Economy Programmes promoting economic growth in Sarawak through digital transformation.

It was also reported that Huawei would also help Sarawak develop its information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure.

Centexs, which was established by Sarawak government through Yayasan Sarawak in 2014, is also currently cooperating with Huawei in skills training in digital fields. Students can obtain international certification issued by Huawei upon completion of the course.

Reuters reported that Google had moved to stop providing Huawei with access to its proprietary apps and services. At the moment, Huawei phones run on Google’s Android mobile operating system.

The newswire reported that since  US had added Huawei to a trade blacklist last week, several companies had suspended business with Huawei which is reputed to be the world’s largest telecom equipment maker.

Google, however, assured that current users of the Huawei Android devices would still be able to access the Google Play app store via open source.

Huawei, in a statement, also assured that it would continue to provide in-house support for all its Android device users.

Also present at the breaking of fast were Assistant Minister of Law, State-Federal Relations and Project Monitoring Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali, State Secretary Tan Sri Datuk Amar Haji Mohamad Morshidi Abdul Ghani, former deputy chief minister Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan Hong Nam and SMA director Dr Zaidil bin Razak.

More than 600 staff members of SMA, Centexs and Scope also joined in the event which was followed by tarawih prayers.