ROME, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — The head of the Italian division of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei said Friday that Italy was in a position to close its long-standing “digital gap” with other countries in western Europe if it used the money from the European Union’s (EU) recovery fund effectively.
Speaking to the daily newspaper La Stampa, President of Huawei Italy Luigi De Vecchis said Italy’s 222-billion-euro (270-billion-U.S.-dollar) share of the recovery fund presented “an opportunity to end the digital divide between our country and the rest of Europe.”
A Huawei-Italy media office official confirmed the accuracy of the comments when contacted by Xinhua.
The EU recovery fund is financial backing for countries aimed at limiting the impacts of the global coronavirus outbreak.
De Vecchis, a former chief executive of the Siemens Network who took the reins of Huawei-Italy in 2018, said companies and government officials should work to convince skeptical elements in Italy that 5G antennae — “5G” is short for fifth-generation technology standards that allow for dense and high-speed wireless communication — are safe and necessary for Italy’s digital advancement.
He said that the coronavirus pandemic that has resulted in a dramatic increase in working from home is making the development of fast and easily-accessible communication networks more important than ever before.
“Current networks are inadequate and in Italy, there is a digital divide that goes beyond the limits of access in rural areas,” De Vecchis said. “To bring us to the level of other countries we have to develop fiber-optic networks and 5G.”
