Employees streaming into the ZTE campus in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen say the company is not yet back in action a day after the US commerce secretary said the company had reached a deal to resume production.
The announcement by Wilbur Ross that ZTE had agreed to a $1bn fine and the imposition of American compliance officers still leaves significant uncertainty hanging over China’s second-largest telecoms equipment manufacturer.
For most white collar and assembly line workers, who have been kept in paid “training” while their company’s fate was negotiated, that includes the question of when normal production will start up again.