ZTE to send back 250 Chinese engineers to localise Indian operations
15 Apr 2010
Chinese telecom equipment vendor ZTE is planning to send back around 250 of its Chinese employees in India to localise operations over the next 2-3 years.
The move follows a government directive last month asking telecom equipment firms which maintain cellphone firms' networks in India to employ only Indian engineers. ZTE employs a workforce of 2,300 of which around 15 per cent is Chinese.
India currently contributes over 10 per cent of the company's global revenues, which were $8.8 billion in 2009-10.
According to D K Ghosh, chairman, ZTE Telecom India, the move was part of the company's localisation policy and had nothing to do with the department of telecom (DoT) directive.
Engineers constitute around 95 per cent of ZTE's workforce in India, and, with the move, Chinese employee strength would reduce to 3 per cent of the total.
The company is also ramping up its R&D investments and proposes to spend about Rs200 crore in the financial year 2010-11.
It also has plans for building a lab in India in the next three years.