Mr. Francois Rivest, Consul General of Consulate General of Canada Visit R&D Center

November 21 2008, Mr. Francois Rivest, Consul General of Consulate General of Canada, and his entourages, visited Guangdong Nortel Research and Development Center. Ms. Kalli Lefevre, Vice President of Research and Development of Nortel Asia and Greater China, and Mr. David Chavez, Lab Director of GDNT R&D Center warmly welcomed and hosted the visitors.

In the welcome speech, Ms. Kalli Lefevre said, as the largest investment company of Nortel in China, GDNT RND Center made a quiet great progress in the past 13 years, which is inseparable from the help and support of each level of Chinese and Canadian government.

Whereafter Mr. David Chavez presented an overview of GDNT and R&D center in detail, and expatiated emphasized on the important role of GDNT R&D center in Nortel global RND system. At present, Nortel possesses 12 excellent worldwide R&D Center. China Lab, consisting of GDNT R&D Center and Beijing Lab, is the second full service RND center globally. Over 10,000 designers are working for Nortel, while in GDNT R&D Center, there are nearly 1,400 professional, occupied 13% of the totality. Mr. David Chavez indicated the current economic environment is an opportunity as well as a challenge to GDNT RND Center. In order to further reduce the R&D and operation cost, Nortel will increase the investment in China, and transfer more projects to GDNT R&D to achieving Nortel's global goal.

Mr. Francois Rivest, were profoundly interested in GDNT and R&D center. He believed as one of the enterprises Canada to China, successfully introducing the advance technique and speeding up the adjustment of industry structure, contributing for the future of telecommunication industry, is the successful example to many corporations. Mr. Francois Rivest also mentioned that Canada Government will run true to form to give more care and support GDNT.

At the end, Mr. Francois Rivest and his team have still visited office, data centre and labs. Mr. Francois Rivest highly appraised the modernization of GDNT R&D new centre and the excellent R&D staff.