China said it would cut the import duty on passenger cars just as Washington and Beijing neared a deal to save Chinese telecoms group ZTE from US sanctions, as the rival superpowers traded concessions to avoid a trade war. “There’s a lot of intellectual property in this company,” Mr Lee said. Managerial staff, software engineers, and higher level technical support personnel have remained employed, said ZTE employees, ostensibly to service existing contracts. Foot traffic has been nearly halved in the area, said local restaurants, who rely on ZTE employees for business. The Shenzhen production facilities, which manufacture everything from ZTE’s trademark routers to mobile phone parts, closed in April and lower-level workers were let go, according to ZTE employees.

Source: The Irish Times May 22, 2018 11:22 UTC