Taiwanese company Foxconn, the world’s largest manufacturer of electronic devices, including the iPhone, is said to be eying an investment of Rs 6,000 crore to set up a 200-acre plant in the Special Economic Zone of Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust.
The development has been confirmed by Transport minister Nitin Gadkari who said that the government has received a proposal by Foxconn for land at JNPT SEZ.
This comes months after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis confirmed that the Taiwan-based manufacturer will set up a mobile manufacturing plant on a 13-acre land of the JNPT as the Maharashtra government was unable to provide additional land.
The JNPT investment would come as a shot in the arm for the manufacturer which plans to double its India capacity this fiscal.
With five plants in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, Foxconn makes nearly 15 million phones a year for companies such as Xiaomi, Nokia, Gionee, InFocus and others in India.
The company has already invested more than $600 million in India, including ecommerce platform Snapdeal and messenger app Hike. This is besides the $5 billion investment in partnership with the government of Maharashtra promised in late 2015.
While it is still not clear if Foxconn will use the unit to manufacture iPhones or other products, but given the location, it's likely to be used as an export base.
Besides setting up more plants and scouting for locations in India, Foxconn is also looking at using India as its export base for shipments to the Middle East and Africa.
According to reports, the manufacturer has begun talks with suppliers to set up base in India to feed into the production chain for local and export markets.
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