Beijing (PingWest)- TikTok owner ByteDance said it is cutting the size of its 2,000- plus India team and is unsure when the Indian team will return to the original size, the company said in an internal letter to employee on Wednesday.

The move came after India this month decided to retain its ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps.

“We initially hoped that this situation would be short-lived...we find that has not been the case,we don’t know when we will make a comeback in India,” ByteDance wrote in the internal letter which was seen by Reuters.

The ban begun in June last year when India’s Ministry of Information Technology accused  59 Chinese apps including TikTok, Alibaba’s UC Browser and Tencent’s WeChat of being engaged in activities “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order".

The ban followed a series of confrontation Between China and India along a disputed Himalayas border.

After ban on 59 apps including TikTok in June, Indian government later expanded sanctions on Chinese technology firms by banning 118 Chinese apps for privacy and security concerns.

Before the ban, India had been one of TikTok’s largest markets and ByteDance had unveiled plans to invest USD1 billion in India in 2019.