The Silicon Review ^Asia

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, is all-set to open its first mobile network plant outside China in 2023 in eastern France. Work on the factory, which is to manufacture base stations, should begin this year. Last month, the company said it would invest at least 200 million euros ($240 million) and create 300 jobs to start with at the "Huawei European Wireless Factory" in Brumath, near Strasbourg.

“Work on the factory, which is to manufacture base stations, should begin this year.The site could produce the first mobile station sometime in 2023, the official decision to locate a manufacturing plant outside China represented a historic date for Huawei”, stated Huawei vice-president and supervisory board member Catherine Chen in a video press conference.

Located near the border with Germany, the site aims to produce 1.0 billion euros of 5G equipment per year for the European market.  The Chinese group is under pressure both from accusations by the US that its mobile network equipment is a spying risk. Huawei has rejected accusations that Beijing could access its equipment to snoop on voice and data traffic, but an increasing number of countries including France have restricted if not outright banned Huawei equipment from their 5G mobile networks.