TEMA Slams Global Vendors For Myopic Vision

The Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Association (TEMA) has criticized the decision of the four global vendors to exit the industry body.

"This is an unfortunate development and the move signals a negative approach of these vendors towards meeting domestic manufacturing objectives," says Ashok Agarwal, Director-General, TEMA.

"All global vendors supplement, not supplant, the local manufacturing wherever they operate. We have always advocated for policies that encourage domestic manufacturing and it seems some individual members have their own agendas to this vision," Agarwal adds.

In a recent communication to TEMA, the four global vendors - Ericsson AB, Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent and Qualcomm Inc. - have jointly written to quit the association alleging that they were not being approached by the association before making statements in public.

"We have noticed that TEMA is coming out with media statements and writing letters to the senior management officials on subjects like manufacturing and green for which we have been neither consulted nor have their statements on actual facts," says the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by Light Reading India.

TEMA, however, says it does not need an approval of its members to speak on its visionary statement, which incidentally is already approved by the members. It has been more than six months since the association is at loggerheads with global equipment vendors who have repetitively questioned the association's decision to support domestic manufacturing. (See Green Telecom: The Way Forward,TEMA Favors Strong Regulation For Recovery and TEMA Bats For Domestic Manufacturing.)

Jatinder Singh, Principal Correspondent, Light Reading India