China, EU should cooperate on 5G development: association

China and Europe should start as soon as possible a strategic collaboration to develop 5G technology, ChinaEU, a business-led association promoting Information and Communications Technology cooperation between Europe and China said on Thursday.

On the same day the Mobile World Congress (MWC) of Barcelona closed its doors, ChinaEU called upon the two sides to develop the 5G technology, a topic widely discussed at the MWC.

"The forthcoming China-EU Summit, to be held this June in Brussels, will provide a unique opportunity for the two sides to officially launch cooperation in this revolutionary area", ChinaEU pointed out.

The 5G technology is around one thousand times faster than 4G and abundant resources are being invested to develop this technology that will significantly increase the speed, providing a better service for users in smart cities, health care or manufacturing, among other fields.

Xiao Ming, Vice President of ZTE Global and President of ZTE Europe highlighted the importance of "cooperation between China and Europe in the field of future generation of communication networks".

Luigi Gambardella said: "ChinaEU has the target to support the process of 5G standardization and radio spectrum harmonization by putting together the political institutions and the main manufacturers of both regions to achieve this common objective".

During the MWC, Huawei's Chairman and Acting CEO Ken Hu stressed the importance of 5G development, as it will be able to support the 100 billion connections required for example by the Internet of Things (IoT).

The move towards the "Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet means new technologies are reshaping industries and society," something which "poses huge challenges for the mobile communications technologies", he said.

He added that "the telecom sector should open its doors an proactively embrace and dialogue with other industries to define 5G standards," because unfortunately it "still falls short of expectations," with too many different standards meaning there is currently "no clear standard."

According to ChinaEU, both regions "could leverage their unique technological and market strengths collaboratively to establish a major strategic presence in the future 5G mobile markets globally."

On the one hand, "China is the leading manufacturer of mobile equipment and network infrastructure", while on the other hand, "European institutions and manufacturers can bring a faster development of this new technology and allow the implementation of new common projects to deploy in both regions", ChinaEU argued.

ChinaEU believes that the cooperation between both sides on this issue "could represent the first step for a sustained initiative pointing to a win-win outcome in EU-China bilateral relations."