EE was basically bankrupt in the early 90's. How could they have caught up to join the wealthy innovation driven countries like UK, Netherlands, Germany and Nordics, on mere fractions of their education and research budgets and considering the massive social damage 45 years of communism has done to eradicate free thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship. Basically, post 1989, nobody had any idea how to run a business, how to do market research, marketing, sales, any of that, let alone build businesses that could challenge wealthy established players from the west, since none of that was taught in schools and universities during communism and now you have to catch up with over 45 years of lost progress over night.
It was just not possible at the time, so being cheap outsourcing labor was the only choice to get out of poverty.