As many of you might have heard by now, Huawei has been banned from doing business with companies in the US. However, a few months ago, the US government announced that they would be softening their stance and while Huawei will continue to remain on the government’s Entity List, they will be granted exemptions.
We have heard reports that many companies have applied for these exemptions although none of them have been granted to date, but apparently that is set to change soon. According to an interview with Bloomberg, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross revealed that these exemptions would be granted “very shortly”.
So far, about 260 or so exemptions have been applied which according to Ross, was more than they expected. However, he also cautioned that while some exemptions would be granted, not everyone will be given the greenlight. It is unclear as to who might have applied for these exemptions, but presumably some of the larger tech firms like Google could be one of them, especially given the close relationship that they have especially on the smartphone front.
It is also a particularly important exemption for Huawei because it would effectively allow the company to ship their phones with Google Play Services again. At the moment, the Huawei Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro are the first Huawei smartphones not to ship with them, but if the exemption is granted, it could be back to business as usual.
Filed in . Read more about China, Huawei and Legal. Source: bloomberg