The Indian government is expected to maintain its restrictions on Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers such as ZTE, despite their proposals to produce and export equipment through Indian partnerships. Senior officials, speaking anonymously, indicated that ZTE's recent initiative to localise production with an Indian partner will not alter the government's current stance.

ZTE, China’s second-largest telecom equipment provider, announced a partnership with Hyderabad-based Celkon Resolute on June 29. The collaboration aims to manufacture routers at a new facility within the Tirupati Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC-1) in Andhra Pradesh.

Officials confirmed that while companies like ZTE can manufacture products in India, they must adhere to the government's "trusted sources" policy, which prohibits the deployment of non-trusted equipment in Indian networks. The government remains firm on this policy and requires all telecom equipment to be cleared by authorised sources before use in service provider networks. However, Wi-Fi routers can still be sold directly to consumers without prior approval.

ZTE and Celkon Resolute’s partnership, which was projected to create approximately 1,000 jobs, has not progressed due to the lack of clarity from central authorities. The companies have not finalised any commercial agreements, and ZTE's efforts to gain approval for Wi-Fi 6 production have yet to yield concrete results.

The uncertainty surrounding Huawei and ZTE's future in India has been exacerbated by the ongoing India-China border standoff. Although India has not explicitly banned these companies, the National Security Directive on telecommunications, effective June 2021, restricts service providers to purchasing equipment only from "trusted sources," effectively excluding Huawei and ZTE from participating in India’s 5G rollout and limiting their role in existing networks.

While India has recently approved several Chinese electronics companies, these approvals have mainly focused on component manufacturing rather than telecom equipment. For instance, Luxshare and a joint venture between Bhagwati Products (Micromax) and Huaqin Technology have received permission to establish operations in India.

(moneycontrol)