PM visits Huawei in Beijing, discusses partnership for ICT development
VIENTIANE - The Prime Minister and the company’s representatives held in-depth discussions on how Huawei can expand its partnership with Laos in the Information and Communications Technology sector.
Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and his delegates visited Huawei’s Beijing R&D (Research and development) Centre on December 1, discussing how Huawei can help develop the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in Laos.
The visit to the China’s tech giant office was made during the official visit to China by the Lao premier. During the tour to the company, the Prime Minister and the company’s representatives held in-depth discussions on how Huawei can expand its partnership with Laos in the ICT sector.
The Prime Minister and his delegation learned about Huawei’s latest business successes, its industry-leading mobile broadband technologies, ICT solutions like Safe City, and its development of smart phones and tablets.
Prime Minister Thongloun also tried out the Huawei telepresence system, connecting with the Huawei Lao office in Vientiane. He exchanged friendly greetings with Huawei’s Lao staff, and urged the Lao employees to work hard and help to grow their country’s ICT industry.
Ten Lao students interning at Huawei as part of Huawei’s “Seeds of the Future” programme introduced the Huawei smart phone Mate9, Matebook and Huawei Watch, while the prime minister posed and took photos with the students.
Huawei’s “Seeds of the Future” programme brings 10 communications students from Laos to China on short term ICT study. This is Huawei’s global Corporate Social Responsibility programme that aims to nurture the ICT talents of Laos. It also aims to facilitate the transfer of ICT knowledge, thus supporting Laos to be a digitally empowered nation.
Prime Minister Thongloun congratulated Huawei on its impressive results, both in Laos and around the world. He praised Huawei’s work with telecom operators and government agencies in Laos. The PM said that Huawei’s projects had proved extremely useful during the recent Asean summit hosted by Laos.
The Prime Minister encouraged Huawei to expand its collaboration with Lao telecom companies and government, and to push its projects through to faster completion. He also thanked Huawei for its sustained investment in Laos and expressed his appreciation for Huawei’s engagement in charitable projects.
Huawei began operating in Laos back in 1998, and since then its business in Laos has grown steadily. Huawei works closely with the Lao telecom operators LTC, ETL, Unitel, Beeline, and Sky Telecom. The company is an active participant in government ICT projects, and Huawei helped Ministry of Post and Telecommunications to release the 10-year ICT development white paper at the Lao National Broadband forum hosted on November 30. Huawei smart phones such as the P9 and Mate 8 are very popular in Laos.
