Gao Weijie got his master’s degree at Tianjin University in 2008. He is now a General Manager of the Iraq Subsidiary of Huawei, responsible for cooperation with the Iraqi Ministry of Communications on the Iraqi Broadband Construction Project.

The communication facilities are relatively backward in Iraq, a country along the Belt and Road, which have become serious obstacles to Iraqi economic development. In 2015, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi during his visit to China signed “the Belt and Road” cooperation agreement, in which the construction of the communication facilities was included. As early as 2003, Huawei had begun to help Iraq improve its infrastructure in the field of communications. Huawei’s projects in Iraq are composed of three parts: the Iraqi broadband construction project, bilateral cooperation in digitizing oil and gas production, and bilateral cooperation to create safe cities. The broadband construction project in which Gao Weijie is participating is expected to be completed in 2018.

 “China’s technology” and “China’s efficiency” are praised by both the Iraqi government and the locals.

Gao Weijie pointed out that new requirements for international personnel training are needed in the current era. In the past, Chinese enterprises working overseas only needed to focus on the projects themselves and complete them in accordance with the contracts. But now, these enterprises need to deal with more uncertainties and challenges, thus requiring international engineering enterprises and related personnel to improve their awareness of and ability to conform with international rules and standards. Apart from the specific nature of the projects, they must understand the political and economic environments of the host countries, which is a great challenge for Chinese enterprises to go global.

Secondly, as Gao Weijie said, in regard to local talent training, the introduction of skills and technologies, and the practice of social responsibilities, Chinese enterprises working overseas should adopt a localization strategy, which provides a basis for their long-term stable development.

Message to students: International engineering and international business are developing rapidly, providing a broad platform for personal development. We should identify and learn in advance so as to better use the platform to play our own role.

By: Wang Qiuju

Editors: Sun Xiaofang and Ross Colquhoun