US reaches deal with ZTE, claims media

The United States government has reached a deal to lift the ban on Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp, giving the company a crucial lifeline, according to media reports on Friday.

The US Commerce Department told US lawmakers that the deal requires ZTE to pay a big amount of fine, place US compliance officers at the company and reshuffle its management team. Once these requirements are met, it would remove the ban that prevents ZTE from buying US technologies for seven years, Reuters and The New York Times reported.

The deal came shortly after the US president Donald Trump said earlier that a possible plan is to fine Shenzhen-based company up to $1.3 billion and restructure its management personnel.

ZTE accounts for about 10 percent of the global telecom market and is the fourth-largest smartphone vendor in the US. Also, US companies provide an estimated 25 percent to 30 percent of components in ZTE's equipment.

Wei Shaojun, a microelectronics professor at Tsinghua University, said this is good news for ZTE, its US suppliers as well as the global electronics industry as a whole.

“It also highlights once again that with a globalized industry chain, no players can benefit from a big company’s loss. Negotiation is a key way to tackle any disputes,” Wei added.

The ban on ZTE was initiated in April when the US government said the company had violated terms of a sanctions settlement. The ban is the latest development in the US' punishment of ZTE, after the latter pleaded guilty last year for violating sanctions by shipping telecom equipment to countries such as Iran.