India May Have Apple's Manufacturing Unit Soon but at a Hefty Concession

If all goes well, the iPhones may have its production centre in India but this would require a lot of economic liberality from Indian Government. Apple, the biggest multinational, has shown its willingness to grab an opportunity to start making, assembling, refurbishing its products in India.

The Multinational is in talks with the Indian Government to materialise its business expansion plans, however, it feels the customs rules needs to be a little more lenient for inviting its attractive investment scheme. Reportedly, there is a list of conditions that has been kept for agreement and among them a 15-year long tax holiday on importing of raw materials and components is a major one. Another demand that the company is supposedly putting forward is a slight change in its restrictions, so that the iPhone maker could import defective devices and repair them for exporting easily.

Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister of Information technology welcomed the proposal of Apple without divulging any details about the negotiation. The talks regarding the anticipated project of the technology giant started when Tim Cook visited India in May last year.

Given the rate of India's overall development and its resourceful and prospective market, Apple sees a great fortune in the country like many other foreign companies. Such an initiative by the tech giant may also result in generating employment opportunities in the country apart from providing economic benefits to the Cupertino, California based software major. At present, India contributes only 2% market share in sale of iPhones.

A meeting of the Departments of Industry, Electronics & Information Technology and Finance is scheduled on 25th of January to discuss the prospects further. While it may sound as a lucrative for our country's future superficially, it would require a great amount of analysis before arriving at any conclusion. This is because there are many foreign investors who have manufacturing units in India and facilitating one with extraordinary incentives would be against the non-discriminatory policy of government. Also favouring all, may not be a beneficial for India's financial health.