Premier Kathleen Wynne went shopping in China and is bringing home quite a nice gift to Ontario. Chinese telecom giant, Huawei, agreed to invest $210 million over the next five years to create 325 new jobs…not bad for her first trade mission since taking power in February 2013. Huawei is no stranger to Canada – they already have 550 employees in Canada…mostly in Markham and the Ottawa suburb of Kanata. Huawei was as interested in expanding in Canada as Premier Wynne was about getting a commitment from Huawei, as their Ontario operations have been very successful.
Huawei Canada President Sean Yang said that Ontario has been home since 2010, and is one of their firm’s 16 worldwide research and development centres. Speaking on Ontario he said it “has established itself as one of the global leaders in advanced communications technology, including 5G.” Of course, 5G is the next ‘big thing’ in mobile smartphone technology…probably hitting us in about 5-7 years down the road and should have about 1,000 times the capacity of 4G networks. He said:
“The success of this facility has reinforced to Huawei the value of Ontario’s talented workforce, and network of universities in Ontario and across Canada, that can support innovative research. We didn’t think we could build the leadership of 5G in Canada, but it happened. We have a perfect team. The ecosystem is very important.”
Premier Wynne has been promoting Ontario across China since Sunday and was “pleased that Huawei is expanding its operations in Ontario…I am here to meet new companies . . . but I am also here to meet with companies that are already in Ontario and that we hope will be able to expand and if there’s something we can do to facilitate that, that will be a success.”
Two hundred and fifty of the jobs will be in research and development and seventy-five will be in marketing and will bring Huawei’s total investment to $500 million in its Ontario operations. Yang likes working with the universities in Waterloo, Toronto and Ontario – they have invested over $4 million over the past four years into the campuses.
Please hook up with us on our Google+ Page and let us know if you are excited about Huawei’s expansion and new jobs…as always, we would love to hear from you.