Taiwanese IT giant Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團), known as Foxconn (富士康) in China, yesterday opened a new assembly plant in central China, state media said, as the troubled firm begins to move its operations inland to limit soaring labor costs.
Foxconn, which has been accused of mistreating Chinese workers following a spate of suicides at its factory in the southern China, plans to mainly produce Apple iPhones at a new US$100 million plant in Henan Province.
CONSTRUCTION
Construction on that plant — owned by Futaihua Precision Electronics (Zhengzhou) Co Ltd (富泰華精密電子), a wholly owned subsidiary — will begin on Aug. 20 and is expected to take one year, Xinhua news agency reported.
For the time being, about 500 workers — many of whom have worked at the main Foxconn production hub in southern Shenzhen — are manning an assembly line in a temporary workshop and living in dormitories nearby, the report said.
INVESTMENT
Xinhua earlier reported that Foxconn planned to invest a total of US$740 million in two factories in the Henan provincial capital of Zhengzhou.
The facilities will not be bigger than the company’s plants in Shenzhen, on the border with Hong Kong, where more than 400,000 workers are employed.
Foxconn spokesman Arthur Huang was not immediately available to comment on the report when contacted.
MOVE
Foxconn’s move away from its long-time manufacturing hub in Shenzhen comes after it hiked salaries for assembly line workers by about 70 percent in the wake of 11 employees apparently committing suicide this year, including 10 in Shenzhen.
Labor rights activists have blamed the suicides on tough working conditions at Foxconn, prompting the head of the company to hit out last month at critics and threaten to review his company’s investment plans in Taiwan.
The world’s biggest electronics contractor has opened plants in Hebei, Shanxi and Hubei provinces, as well as in the southwestern mega-city of Chongqing, Xinhua said. It has invested in another two factories in Chengdu, the report said.
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