A secret five-year agreement signed in 2016 by Apple CEO Tim Cook with China emerges to ensure success in the Asian country by avoiding bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles, in exchange for investments in the country amounting to 275 billion dollars.
The news was revealed by the technology site "The Information".
The deal was signed under the Trump administration - which attacked Beijing, accusing it of stealing jobs from US citizens and forcing Western companies to sell technology or partner with Asian companies to penetrate that market - but it continued afterwards. the arrival at the White House of Democrat Joe Biden, who considers China the main opponent for the hi-tech economic sector.
The signing took place on the sidelines of some visits by the CEO to China in 2016, when he lobbied local authorities, which intended to hinder his projects with restrictive provisions. For this Cook decided to make available an enormous amount that would help Chinese companies in the development of the most advanced production technologies "and as a support for the" training of high quality Chinese talents ".
A portion of the large sum was used to open new stores and research and development centers and to run renewable energy projects.
Apple's CEO also promised to use components produced by Chinese suppliers, sign agreements with local software companies, collaborate with local universities and invest directly in some technology companies (such as the start-up Didi Chuxing, the Chinese Uber).
In exchange for these commitments, all the obstacles and limitations envisaged for foreign companies have been removed for the Apple company, except for some incidents of censorship where the Beijing government has imposed itself on the multinational.
The agreement yielded unprecedented success: the iPhone is today the best-selling smartphone in China (+ 83% in the last quarter) and for the Cupertino company, the Dragon has become the second largest market in the world after the United States, with 19% of total sales.
(Unioneonline / F)