Nortel Underlines Ties with China's MarketA high ranking official from Canada- based Nortel Networks said that China is a strategic market for Nortel and his company will increase investment in production and research and development (R&D) in the country."China is the world's fastest growing telecom market, which represents an important piece of our business," Greg Mumford, president in charge of Nortel's optical Internet department, told reporters during his current visit to China. As the world's largest telecom equipment maker, Nortel began to lose its luster this year as the industry was hurt by lower sales of telecom equipment, especially in the United States. Nortel has announced 30,000 job cuts worldwide this year. But Greg said that the downturn in general has not affected the development of China's market. "What we are hoping for is that the world market will not get worse and we can focus on something like building up business. Pretty clearly, Asian areas in general, and China in particular, are the place we want to build business," said Greg. Nortel has been successful on the Chinese market. In 2001, it has won contracts worth 176 million US dollars in the field of optical networks, as well as 870 million US dollars worth of wireless contracts. Nortel entered the Chinese market in 1972 when it sold the first microwave equipment to the former Ministry of Post and Telecom. So far, it has set up four joint ventures and two R&D centers in the country. |
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