South African President sides HUAWEI as the only company that can bring 5G to SA

South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, backed Chinese technology giant, Huawei, on
Friday at the first South African Digital Economy Summit in Johannesburg, where he outlined
his government’s strategy to unlock economic opportunities in the digital era.

During his speech, the President turned his attention to multilateral relations, which he said
should also reflect an enabling posture for the global digital economy.

Ramaphosa said the US action against Huawei was an example of protectionism which
would affect South Africa’s telecommunications sector.

“This standoff between China and the US where the technology company Huawei is being
used as victim because of its successes is an example of protectionism that will affect our
own telecommunications sector, particularly the efforts to roll out the 5G network, causing a
setback on other networks as well.” He said.

He said a number of telecommunication companies had written to him to express their
concerns about trade restrictions that had been imposed on Huawei by the US government.

“Telecom companies got together and wrote me a letter saying that this tussle between the
US and China around the company called Huawei is going to hurt us because we can’t go to
5G and only Huawei can lead us to 5G,” he said.

With the trade discussions between the US and China set to resume, Ramaphosa said the
Chinese telecom giant was a victim.

“We support a company that is going to take our country and indeed the world to better
technologies, and that is 5G. We cannot afford to have our economy to be held back
because of this fight. We are pleased that at the G20 Summit, China and US were able to
meet and they said they will relax some of the constraints being imposed on Huawei, so that
it can continue to deal with other various companies.”