State-run telecom company BSNL today announced collaboration with Chinese firm Fibre Home to manufacture telecom equipment in the country.
"Today state owned telecom giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Fibre Home Pvt Ltd to jointly start manufacturing telecom equipment and optical fibre cable in BSNL factories," the public sector telecom company said in a statement.
BSNL has seven telecom factories with a workforce of around 1,600. At present these factories are manufacturing several customer-end equipment and testing tools for internal consumption of BSNL.
"Fibre Home is one of the top leaders in telecom manufacturing in the world. Fibre Home India Pvt Limited has decided to heavily invest in India with BSNL," the statement said.
BSNL said the agreement with Fibre Home is expected to bring telecom manufacturing technology and expertise to India.
"This agreement will help India to get high quality telecom equipment at reasonable cost and will also reduce deployment time.
"BSNL always strides hard to fulfil government dreams by adopting workable and practical program like this," BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava said.
As per the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S), import of telecom equipment during 2013-14 stood at Rs 67,844 crore and Rs 89,929 crore in 2014- 15.
Fibre Home President Lee, who signed the agreement, said the joint manufacturing is coming at an apt time when demand for telecom equipment is increasing world over and felt that BSNL-Fibre Home may export telecom equipment to Asia Pacific region shortly.
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