US to licence Huawei suppliers "very shortly", says US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

Number of US suppliers to Huawei "frankly more than we would've thought", admits Ross

Licences for US companies to continue supplying components and services to Huawei will be available "very shortly", according to US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Ross added that the US government hadn't expected the volume of applications - 206 in total - that it has received.

"That's a lot of applications - it's frankly more than we would've thought," Ross told Bloomberg. However, he also admitted that the deadline for completing the approvals could "slip a little bit".

Back in August, it was revealed that more than 130 applications for licences to supply Huawei had been lodged.

The requirement for US suppliers to Huawei was instigated in May when the US government placed Huawei and its affiliates on its ‘Entity List', a blacklist of companies believed to pose a security risk to the US.

Effective from 16^th May 2019, the order claims that "The US government has determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that Huawei has been involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US".

Huawei's placement on the US Entity List banned US companies from supplying goods and services to Huawei without a special licence from the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS).

In the immediate aftermath, companies as diverse as ARM, Google, Microsoft and others all suspended sales to Huawei. The move threatened to cripple Huawei given its reliance on US components in its networking hardware, as well as ARM intellectual property in microprocessors, Windows on both PCs and servers, and Google's Android operating system on smartphones.

However, the US government quickly backed off, effectively suspending the order for three months, then extending it for a further three months when that deadline expired. The second three-month suspension will draw to a close this month.