Key iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Indian billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd to establish a joint venture that aims to manufacture semiconductors in the South Asian nation.
The investment would be considered a win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which aims to create an ecosystem for semiconductor manufacturing in India.
The planned joint venture could provide a significant boost to domestic manufacturing of electronics in India, Hon Hai said in a statement.
Photo: Fang Wei-jie, Taipei Times
Discussions with a few Indian state governments are ongoing in an attempt to determine the plant’s location, it said.
Hon Hai — the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) — said that Vedanta, a leading oil, gas and metals company, is to hold a majority share in the joint venture, while the Taiwanese firm would be a minority shareholder.
Agarwal is to chair the new venture, which Hon Hai described as the first of its kind between the two companies.
In a regulatory filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange later yesterday, Hon Hai said it plans to take a 40 percent stake in the joint venture with an investment of US$118.7 million.
The final terms, including transaction amount, asset details and other conditions, will depend on further negotiations between the two companies, the filing said.
The agreement came after Modi’s government recently announced the Production Linked Incentive Scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturing, which was created to design financial incentives to boost domestic manufacturing in the sector, and it is set to become the first joint venture in electronics manufacturing since the start of the scheme, Hon Hai said.
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