Union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad confirmed in an interview with The Economic Times (ET) that the dialogue with technology giant Apple manufacturing in India is still on.
Prasad told the publication that “once things are formalised, we shall come up with a structured response.”
The IT minister told ET that while government is listening to Apple’s demands, it too “will need to look towards the Indian market as well.”
The news comes after the Press Trust of India reported that Apple has already begun selling its iPhone SE model in India with the “Made in India” label on the back, in small batches.
An industry source had pointed out that the batch was a result of a limited trial run and that the phones were manufactured in limited quantities.
The same report also pointed out that these were being manufactured by Apple’s Taiwanese manufacturing partner, Wistron Corp.
There have been reports that the Indian government has partially given in to Apple’s demands.
Back in 23 May this year, a top government official told Reuters that the government had offered Apple Inc the option to import mobile handset components intended for use in local manufacturing tax-free. The tax concessions will be subject to the condition of increasing local value addition over a period of time.
Among a set of tax concessions, Apple had initially sought a 15-years tax holiday for all components that it would import for setting up a manufacturing facility in India. A panel of ministries rejected that demand and has offered a phased programme to increase the share of local production in the manufacturing, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and IT said.
Whether or not Apple ends up manufacturing in India. The benefits of the same seem to be far and few. Apple seems to gain more out this deal than its customers in India, who will barely see a price difference when these locally manufactured smartphones go on sale officially.
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