An Apple Inc vendor is looking at shifting six production lines to India from China, which could result in US$5 billion of iPhone exports from the South Asian nation, the Times of India reported, citing people familiar with the matter who it did not identify.
The establishment of the facility would create about 55,000 jobs over about a year, the newspaper reported, not naming the Apple vendor.
It would also cater to the domestic market and expand operations to include tablets and laptops, the newspaper reported.
Photo: AP Photo/Ajit Solanki
Samsung Electronics Co and Apple’s assembly partners are among 22 companies that have pledged 110 billion rupees (US$1.47 billion) of investments to set up mobile phone manufacturing units in India.
Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), Wistron Corp (緯創) and Pegatron Corp (和碩), all iPhone assemblers, are among companies picked to make smartphones under a production-linked incentive plan, Indian Minister of Electronics and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad told a news conference in New Delhi on Saturday.
The move could boost the value of phone output to 11.5 trillion rupees in the next five years, he said.
The incentives are aimed at encouraging global companies to shift their manufacturing beyond China after a pandemic-induced trade dispute put the focus on risks to supply chains. The step is also part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s calls for a self-reliant India aimed at boosting local manufacturing and reducing dependence on imports.
“The move is not against any country, but is India positive,” Prasad said.
The aim is for India to become a big global player in the electronics manufacturing segment, he said.
The plan is expected to generate 300,000 direct jobs and 900,000 indirect jobs in the next five years. Indian companies including Dixon Technologies and Optiemus Electronics have also applied to take advantage of the incentive program.
Companies that have submitted applications for component manufacturing include Ascent Circuits and Visicon, the government said in a statement.
As per the plan, the government is offering a financial incentive of as much as 6 percent on incremental sales of goods made in the country for five years.
It also promises that an incentive of 25 percent on capital expenditure would be provided for production of electronic components, semiconductors and other parts.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
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