Huawei sharply increased imports of parts and components from outside of the US as it diversifies its supply chain, with Japan likely to surpass the country as its largest supplier this year, China Daily reported.

Liang Hua, chairman of Huawei, said imports from Japan are expected to increase 50 per cent year-on-year to JPY1.1 trillion ($10.1 billion) in 2019, the newspaper wrote. The company’s imports from the US in 2018 totalled about $11 billion, but are forecast to plunge due to trade restrictions imposed in May.

The Chinese vendor also is looking to expand imports from Europe. Before being added to the US blacklist in May, it targeted raising imports from the region to $40 billion over the next five years, China Daily said.

Huawei deputy chairman Ken Hu told French media in October the company will make more purchases from European suppliers as the US sanctions continue.

The company is working to find alternative suppliers and build its own suite of software and apps for device platform HarmonyOS. In September, it announced its 5G base stations were built with no US components.

Earlier this month, founder and CEO of Ren Zhengfei noted the company definitely wants to work with US suppliers and always embraces globalisation.

“But now we’re on the entity list and certain supplies have been stopped. We have the ability to survive and, if we have to, we have a temporary approach to manage. However, this is not our long-term strategy and we have no intention of doing everything ourselves,” he explained.