Sarawak-Huawei collaboration to continue despite US ban, says Abang Johari

Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg

By Nigel Edgar

KUCHING, May 25: Sarawak will continue to work with China telecommunications giant Huawei despite America’s ban on the company, which included using Google’s Android operating system.

Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said the collaboration would not be affected and that the state’s digital economy development, which includes 5G technology, would still go on.

“Our side is not affected. We will carry on with the collaboration,” he told reporters after breaking fast with Sarawak Multimedia Authority (SMA) staff at a hotel here yesterday.

Last month, the Sarawak government and Huawei signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) through the Centre for Technical Excellence in Sarawak (Centexs) and SMA.

Meanwhile, on May 20, Google announced that it would no longer provide Android support for future Huawei devices due to US president Donald Trump’s ban order.

Google, however, assured that current users of the Huawei Android devices would still be able to access the Google Play app store via open source.

Huawei, in a statement, also assured that it would continue to provide in-house support for all its Android device users. — DayakDaily