Foxconn embraces India sans Vedanta

The world's largest electronics maker is keen to show that its India plans are on track. That is understandable because Foxconn needs India as much as India needs Foxconn

- SURAJEET DAS GUPTA

The bonhomie was apparent.

On July 28, Foxconn Chairman Young Liu was speaking at the Semicon India conclave in Gandhinagar. "Taiwan is and will be your (India's) most trusted and reliable partner," he said in an apparent promise to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in attendance.

Modi smiled as Liu said he was responding to a discussion he had with the Prime Minister, who said the word IT, usually short for information technology, had been redefined as "India and Taiwan".

The bonhomie came in the wake of potential acrimony. Less than three weeks earlier, on July 10, Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker, had said it had withdrawn from its $19.5-billion semiconductor joint venture with Vedanta, a conglomerate with businesses ranging from oil to metals.

The Indian government has declared chipmaking a top priority in a strategy that focuses considerably on electronics manufacturing for economic growth. Foxconn's arrival on India's shores is a crucial step in this journey. Based in Taiwan, the epicentre of global chipmaking, Foxconn first made its name by assembling iPhones and later expanded into chips. It announced its partnership with Vedanta last September with plans to make chips in Gujarat.

Naturally, though ministers put up a brave front to say nothing was amiss, critics said the breakup of the joint venture would delay the building of a chip plant in the country by at least another two years under the semiconductor policy announced in October 2021. Some said this was a reflection of the policy's failure.