Amid apprehensions that Taiwan-based tech giant Foxconn may shy away from its proposed $5 billion investment in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday said the company is ‘not going anywhere’ and hoped issues raised by it will be resolved soon.
“Foxconn had issues pertaining to the Central government. The company wants its manufacturing costs here to match those in China,” he said while speaking to reporters at his residence ‘Varsha’ here.
The world's largest electronics contract manufacturer plans to set up manufacturing units in India, which boasts of the world's second-largest base of mobile phone users, to mitigate rising labour costs in China and also lower manufacturing cost of iPhones. Fadnavis said the company, which counts Apple, Xiaomi, Blackberry and Amazon among its clients, had laid down certain conditions, which were being examined by the Centre.
“I met officials from Foxconn a month back and they assured me their issues with the Centre would be solved soon. Once that happens, they will immediately start their work,” Fadnavis said.
“It is true the project has got delayed but I can assure Foxconn is not going anywhere,” he said. The State Government’s widely publicised MoU with the iPhone maker appeared to be in trouble after a senior official from the Industries Department said production has not taken off as the company was ‘yet to find customers’ here.
“They (Foxconn officials) say they haven’t found customers yet and have thus not started their manufacturing plant. We don't think this is disappointing as we would like to give them some more time before coming to a decision,” Apurva Chandra, Principal Secretary (Industries), had said.
Fadnavis had earlier said the MoU with Foxconn will create direct employment for 50,000 people. Opposition Congress had used the delay in implementing the Foxconn MoU to criticise Fadnavis. The party had asked the Chief Minister to clear the air on the big-ticket project and said the delay exposed his ‘tall claims’ about investment and employment generation in Maharashtra.
