The government of India is looking forward to increasing manufacturing and assembly of electronic goods in the country. In a new move, the country is easing down on the conditions required to set-up manufacturing and assembly plants.
Economic Times has reported that the Indian government has dropped several clauses that have been holding back smartphone manufacturers from setting up their plants in the country. As a result, there will not be any evaluation done on the machinery brought from other countries and also will do away with inspection of the plant.
Companies like Apple will definitely find it easier to set-up more assembly plants in India. By doing so, companies will be able to enjoy the production linked incentive (PLI). Apple products are expensive in India because of the high import duty placed on it.
“The empowered committee of secretaries met on Friday and decided to remove the clause, which evaluated plant and machinery brought into India at 40% of its value, and has agreed to a few other changes so that manufacturing could shift to India in a big way,” said a source to the Economic Times.
“Also, the proposed investors had raised concerns on the excessive business information sought by the government, which has been further watered down,” added the source.
Apple has already set-up an assembly in the city of Bengaluru to locally assemble phones like the iPhone XR. As a result, the price of iPhone XR has come down drastically in India – matching the retail price of the phone in the US.
If Apple is able to set-up more plants and start assembling all iPhone models and later add Mac products, accessories, etc, the price of all products will fall by at-least 25 percent. Recently, Apple started offering custom configurations for Mac computers which was previously not available in India.
