Thousands of Huawei employees have stepped forwards since the company launched a campaign against graft, which the CEO has previously claimed is its “biggest enemy”.

The company’s founder and rotating CEO, Ren Zhengfei (pictured), said in an interview streamed from the World Economic Forum in Davos that 4,000 to 5,000 employees had come forwards as part of its ‘confess for leniency’ programme, which was launched last year and expired on 31 December.

Speaking through an interpreter, Ren suggested during the interview that many of those admitting to graft were fairly senior.

Employees were reportedly told they would be treated leniently if they admitted to violating the company’s policies – ranging from small misdemeanors, fraudulent reporting of financial information to the company, and even bribery and corruption – but after the deadline any cases would be sent directly to the authorities, the New York Times reported.

Last September, after saying it uncovered four cases of employees in its enterprise group violating the introduction of its corruption policy, Ren called “internal graft a challenge bigger than any competitor. The only thing that can stop us is internal graft”.

Ren also said in Davos that the Chinese government has never asked the company to spy on other countries. “We love our country, but… we definitely will not compromise the interest of any other country or government. We comply with laws and regulations in every country we do business in.”

The vendor, China’s largest telecoms equipment maker and a close second in the world behind Ericsson, has 150,000 employees and its revenue last year was estimated at CNY288 billion ($47 billion).

Ren added that he expects revenues to grow by a further 20 per cent in 2015 to $56 billion.