Huawei Italy executive says TIM decision not political: newspaper

MILAN (Reuters) – Huawei Technologies will continue working with Telecom Italia despite being shut out of a recent tender to supply new generation 5G technology, the chairman of the group’s Italian unit told a newspaper on Monday.

Luigi De Vecchis said the decision to exclude Huawei from supplying new generation 5G services in Great Britain was a “geopolitical, not a technological decision” but Telecom Italia’s decision was different.

“We respect the decision, which is of a commercial not a political nature that concerns one of the many parts of the network,” he said.

“Of course we’re sorry, it’s not a party but we continue to work with TIM as well as with Vodafone and others.”

The U.S. government has urged allies to exclude the Chinese telecoms giant from the West’s next-generation communications infrastructure because of the danger it could give China a strategic opening to spy on the West.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie, Elvira Pollina, editing by Gianluca Semeraro)