Apple will have to come to India sooner or later: MeitY officials

US tech giant Apple Inc has to come to India for manufacturing, sooner or later, as it will not like to miss the growth in India, sources at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said.

Various sources at the Ministry said the company cannot ignore the fact that others like Samsung and Xiaomi are doing well in India, and that India will not give in to its ‘extra’ demands for setting up manufacturing here.

“Their demands are different from others and without their assuring jobs or benefit for Indians, how can we tweak policy for them? If they create jobs for, for instance, one lakh Indians or invest in land here, then may be we can think of something,” a top official at MeitY told BusinessLine .

The government in November had asked the iPhone maker to come back with a fresh approach to its demands for manufacturing in India, but it has not reverted as of now. MeitY was mandated to assess the proposals that were earlier being looked into by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

The official said that the government has already expressed India’s stand and also explained that India is different from China.

“Xiaomi brought their suppliers recently to India to show India has friendly policies for manufacturing and Cisco also had brought their suppliers before that,” said another official.

Apple had sought certain concessions for setting up a manufacturing unit in the country. These included duty exemption on manufacturing and repair units, components, capital equipment and consumables for smartphone manufacturing and service/repair for a period of 15 years, but the government has not agreed to the demands. On being asked if there was any latest communication from Apple, the official said, “We are always in discussions with them…encouraging them to step up their operations in India.”

According to him, the new policy on electronics manufacturing (National Electronics Policy) would make it worthwhile for “all the major players to step up manufacturing in India, including Apple. It will be friendly for all manufacturers in the country.”

"The draft policy will be put up for public consultation in a month or so, and we expect it to be finalised by the second half of the current fiscal," the official said on condition of anonymity.

The proposed policy will focus on various areas including medical electronics and automobile electronics. It will also leverage the country’s strengths in electronics design, given that nearly 75 per cent of global technology majors have research and development presence in India, he said.

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