Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies made various concessions to the Australian government after being blocked from the country's US$38 billion National Broadband Network (NBN) project over security concerns.

The company announced Tuesday that the concessions included opening up its partial equipment source codes and ensuring only Australian nationals with certain security clearance participate in the project, according to a Reuters report.

"We want to be open and transparent,"said Jeremy Mitchell, an officer in charge of Huawei's operations in Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific. "We are confident in overcoming the obstacles."

It remains to be seen whether the IT giant has given enough ground to be allowed back in the bidding.

The Australian NBN is one of the world's largest communications infrastructure projects. It aims to connect 93 percent of Australian homes and workplaces with optical fiber cables and broadband services and is expected to be completed by 2020.

Industrial analysts were baffled by Huawei being barred from bidding for the project, especially when New Zealand and Britain had allowed the company to work on their communications networks similar to NBN. What's more, Huawei had already been involved in other large Australian commutations projects.

Australia's main intelligence body, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, claimed that cyber attack from overseas was the paramount security threat facing the country.

The Australian Finance Review on Tuesday reported that an undersea cable connecting Perth and Singapore was possibly under security scrutiny. The project was built by Huawei and British Global Marine Systems.

Contact the writer of this story at: hes@china.org.cn.

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