ISLAMABAD: Rejecting recently announced denial of the export privileges by the US, China’s technology giant has opened up on the controversy, making it clear that export control compliance regime is regarded as the foundation and bottom-line of the company’s overseas operations. US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross had announced on April 16 that Bureau of Industry and Security had decided to impose denial of export privileges against two Chinese companies. As a result of this denial, ZTE, one of China’s largest manufacturers of telecommunications equipment, will no longer be able to obtain US-made goods or software without special permissions. The US move is being seen in line with the recent announcement of US sanctions by Trump administration against certain Chinese companies. Commonly known as ‘US trade war on China’, the move is going to hurt Chinese shipments to the US. The ZTE media wing stated that the company has been working diligently on export control compliance program and has invested tremendous resources in export compliance and has made significant progress since 2016. “It is unacceptable that US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security insists on unfairly imposing the most severe penalty on ZTE even before the completion of investigation of facts, ignoring the continuous diligent work of the company and the progress we have made on export compliance and disregarding the fact that 1) the company self-identified the issues in the correspondence and reported immediately; 2) the company took measures against the employees who might have been responsible for this incident; 3) corrective measures taken immediately; 4) a prestigious US law firm engaged to conduct independent investigation,” according to the information posted on company’s website. “The denial order will not only severely impact the survival and development of ZTE, but will also cause damages to all partners of the company including a large number of US companies,” the statement added. The Chinese tech giant said since April 2016, the ZTE Corporation has continuously reflected on lessons from its past experience in export control compliance and has attached great importance to it. “In March 2017, we reached a settlement with the US Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Treasury for over $1 billion, covering civil and criminal charges levied against the company. The charges stemmed from allegations that the company exported US-controlled goods to Iran and North Korea in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and then attempted to cover up those activities,” the statement said. “Within ZTE, compliance is regarded as the foundation and bottom line of the company’s operations. We have established a compliance committee led directly by its CEO; built a global team of experienced export control compliance experts; engaged several world-class counsels and consultants to provide professional guidance in order to establish and optimize export control compliance structure, system and procedure,” the statement said. Elaborating the steps taken to ensure compliance of the export control regime, the company said it had introduced and implemented the SAP Global Trade System (GTS); organised compliance training covering over 65,000 employees; cooperated comprehensively with the independent monitor designated by US government to ensure the monitor’s real-time and transparent monitoring over ZTE’s implementation of the relevant agreements with US government. “We also ensured applicable export control compliance requirements, and provided over 132,000 pages of documents. In 2017 alone, the company invested over USD 50 million in its export control compliance program and is planning to invest more resources in 2018,” the statement added. However, the company regretted that the US Bureau of Industry and Security activated the suspended denial order on the ground that ZTE did not timely reduce bonus of and issued letters of reprimand to certain employees involved in past violation of export control and made false statements in correspondence with the US government. “In any case, we will not give up its efforts to resolve the issue through communication, and we are also determined, if necessary, to take judicial measures to protect the legal rights and interests of our company, our employees and our shareholders, and to fulfill obligations and take responsibilities to our global customers, end-users, partners and suppliers. As a global company originating in China, we will unite all of our employees as one with full confidence to work together taking best efforts to facilitate a final resolution,” the statement concluded. Published in Daily Times, April 22nd 2018.