Indian entities supplying US technologies to Huawei may face penal action: Ravi Shankar Prasad
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in Parliament on Wednesday that Indian entities that will supply US-origin technology components to Chinese telecom major Huawei may face penal action.
Indian entities that will supply US-origin technology components to Chinese telecom major Huawei may face penal action under American regulations, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in Parliament Wednesday.
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"Any Indian company which will act as a supplier of US-origin equipment, software, technology to Huawei and its affiliates in entity list could be subject to penal action or sanction under US regulations," Telecom Minister Prasad said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
He said that as per the information available till now, the Department of Commerce, USA, has added Huawei Technologies to the entity list on May 16, 2019, by amending the US Export Administration Regulations.
"Huawei's inclusion in the entity list implies that US companies require prior export licence for sale of any equipment/software/technology to Huawei," Prasad said.
The US government has directed its companies, including Google, not to supply software and hardware to Huawei, alleging security risk from the company.
Huawei has teamed up with Vodafone Idea to conduct 5G trials in India.
"So far six proposals have been received which include proposals from China's ZTE and Huawei. Any field trial in respect of 5G is to be carried out only through licensed Telecom Service Providers in a restrictive, limited geographical area and for specific use case," Prasad said.
He said a committee under Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) has been constituted to give recommendations on various issues, including security, relating to 5G and technology trials in India.
However, just this week, in a change of events, Chinese smartphone-maker got a reprieve, after Google lifted Android ban on Huawei.
This news came right after President Donald Trump announced at the G20 summit that American companies can do business with Huawei again, effectively lifting the trade ban it had issued on the Chinese firm a month ago.
Speaking at the G20 summit, last Saturday, Trump said,
"US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei. We’re talking about equipment where there’s no great national security problem with it."
