CTE deputy managing director Athena Xian, pictured, announced the office installation on 6 September at House 17 Delano

CTE deputy managing director Athena Xian, pictured, announced the office installation on 6 September at House 17 Delano

The EMEA region business arm of China Telecom Global (CTG) moved two Chinese permanent staff members into its new offices at 4, rue Glesener, in August.

“In future we would like to get more local engineers to serve other customers. We’re considering setting up a branch here and not only a technical support site”, CTE deputy managing director Athena Xian told Delano.

The initial staff is supported by a tier team support team based in France and a multi-lingual, tier 3 support team based out of CTE’s specialised office in London, UK.

Xian explained that Luxembourg was chosen because it formed part of the telecommunication firm’s strategy to cover major European cities, such as Paris, Frankfurt, Budapest, Copenhagen, Milan and Madrid. At the same time, it was an opportunity to be closer to existing customers, among them some of the seven Chinese banks already established in Luxembourg.

Photo: Delano. A lit sign inaugurates the installation in Luxembourg of a technical service centre by China Telecom

Xian said that though the Luxembourg office was something of a “test” of the market, she expected the permanent Luxembourg team to grow in coming months, reaching up to 10 people within a year. The new recruits, she said, would be mainly data engineers and sales people with a strong knowledge of the local market.

CTE was founded by CTG, itself a wholly owned international business subsidiary of China Telecom, in 2006 and seeks to build a digital silk road linking the entire EMEA region. It is headquartered in London and has wholly owned subsidiaries in Frankfurt, Paris, Moscow and Johannesburg and representative offices in Nairobi, Dubai and Istanbul. It also boasts an extensive point of presence network.