A new report from Oxford Economics indicates Huawei Canada has had a positive impact on Canada’s GDP growth, “with a total benefit equivalent to $690 million CAD in 2018 alone.”
The report noted that Huawei has supported nearly 5,000 jobs in Canada and has invested $164 million in research and development initiatives and generated $204 million in taxation, “potentially helping to support public spending on health care, education and other core services,” in 2018.
“Huawei ranks among the top-25 spenders on R&D in Canada each year, an achievement we are keen to maintain and build upon,” Alykhan Velshi, vice-president of corporate affairs at Huawei Canada, said in a press release. “We enable and enhance those sectors that will help to make the future possible — from AI to blockchain to genomics and the Internet of Things. These are foundation stones of tomorrow’s economy and sustained job creation for years to come.”
Huawei Canada came into the country in 2008. In 2012, former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper said that the company would not be allowed to bid on government contracts. Huawei was also not allowed to provide equipment to the core of a telecom carrier’s network infrastructure.
Since 2012, the report indicated that the company’s economic impact “has grown sizably in just little more than half a decade,” with attributable GDP increasing by 243 percent.
In that same time period, the number of jobs has increased by 166 percent.
In its 2018 sales revenue, Huawei Canada revealed it made approximately $566 million CAD, which includes earnings from its carrier and consumer businesses.
Speaking through a translator in February 2019, Liang Hua, one of Huawei’s chairmen, said that number broke down to about $270 million USD (roughly $357 million CAD) in sales revenue from its telecom business and about approximately $150 million USD (about $198 million CAD) from its consumer device business in the Canadian market.
“Huawei sees Canada as a strategically significant destination for ongoing investment and growth,” said Huawei Canada’s president Eric Li. “Canada’s concentration of technology partners — both international and domestic, its outstanding network of universities and researchers and its welcoming immigration policies particularly for skilled high-technology workers, make it our preferred North American platform for future growth.”
Canada has not decided if Huawei will be allowed to participate in the rollout of 5G technology, and while newly minted Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the issue was important, he did not provide a timeline as to when a decision will be made.
In recent interviews with the company, Huawei Canada said it was going to work with the federal government and was going to be “diplomatically forceful” when it came to communicating with the federal government.
It also noted that if it did get banned from the country in 5G deployment, it would suffer a revenue loss but it would be able to survive in Canada.
Source: Huawei Canada
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
