Huawei is nothing if not inventive in its efforts to land the contract to run Britain’s forthcoming 5G mobile phone network. This morning it has published a report by the Oxford Economics Group which claims that the company added £1.7 billion to Britain’s GDP and accounted for 26,200 UK jobs in 2018. It is an eye-catching figure, but should it really influence government ministers as they weigh up the advantages of giving Huawei the contract against the security risks of handing parts of our telecommunications infrastructure to a company connected with the Chinese government?
You have to have a little imagination to get to the figure of £1.7 billion and 26,200 jobs. Of the £1.7 billion, only £287 million is accounted for by Huawei’s own activities and £806 million by businesses in the company’s supply chain. The remaining £598 million is attributed to jobs in other areas of the economy that are ‘stimulated’ by Huawei’s employees and its suppliers’ employees spending.
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