Global technology manufacturer Foxconn will invest Rs 1,600 crore towards building a greenfield electronics facility in Kanchipuram, near Chennai. The Taiwanese firm signed an MOU with Tamil Nadu on Monday that detailed the establishment of its proposed manufacturing plant.
According to officials from Tamil Nadu Guidance, the state’s nodal agency for investment promotion, Foxconn’s investment has potential to generate up to 6,000 jobs. The facility is expected to be up and running in late 2024, and is separate from Foxconn’s existing plant that employs 35,000 and manufactures Apple iPhones.
At its latest MoU exchange, Foxconn was represented by its chairman Young Liu, who inked the deal in the presence of Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin.
“Foxconn’s repeated investments and expansion plans in Tamil Nadu are a testament to the state being the top choice for manufacturing in India, for major companies across the world,” said TRB Rajaa, Tamil Nadu’s minister of industries and investment promotion, “This is a major achievement for the state.”
News of Foxconn’s investment takes place in the backdrop of similar big-ticket investments and expansion by global names like Hyundai, Mitsubishi Electric, Petronas and Omron. However, Foxconn’s decision to manufacture electronics comes even as Tamil Nadu recently became India’s top exporter of electronics. It exported electronics goods worth $5.37 billion in FY-23 according to the National Import-Export Record for Yearly Analysis of Trade — three times it FY-22 export number of $1.86 billion. Tamil Nadu also secured the top rank on Niti Aayog’s export readiness index.
“Tamil Nadu is poised to not only remain the top electronics exporter in the country, but also significantly increase its electronics exports in the coming years,” Rajaa added.
Foxconn was recently in the news for pulling out of a 19-billion-dollar semiconductor fab project that it entered into with energy major Vedanta. Late last week, Liu met Prime Minister Narendra Modi along the sidelines of Semicon India 2023, after it cancelled its proposed joint venture with Vedanta.