Huawei offers to share source code with India authorities to allay security fears

In a bid to persuade India that its telecom gear does not pose any security risks , Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei has offered to reveal the source code for its network systems according to a report the Economic Times reported on Friday.

Source code refers to the set of programming statements, created by a programmer with a text editor or a visual programming tool and then saved in a file

The newspaper quoted an unnamed Huawei representative as saying that as per generally accepted international industry practices, vendors could open their source code with authorities under mutually accepted arrangement. The representative added that the company was open to the option, the report said.

According to industry sources the Indian government was not approving equipment orders from Chinese vendors due to security issues.

Indian concerns centre around the possibility that Chinese equipment may have embedded spying technology. The two giant neighbours fought a war in 1962 and relations between them have been less than cordial since then.

The company officials had last week sought to address Indian concerns with assurances it would ensure its networks were secure.

On Thursday, Indian home secretary asked China's ZTE Corp for additional information on security, which gave room to the telecoms gear company to make its case for being considered bona fide supplier for telecom equipment in India.