Foxconn Announces Moves To Build Factories In India

After a spate of labor abuse reports hounding them since 2007, Foxconn Technology Group, also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., has announced plans to spend $5 Billion US Dollars on building factories in India.

According to a Reuters report by Devidutta Tripathy, Foxconn signed a treaty with the Maharashtra state of India on August 8th. The signing of the agreement was done in Mumbai, between Foxconn founder Terry Gou and Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The treaty is in line with the “Make in India” campaign, an initiative by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to boost the country’s economy. This program seeks to catapult India as one of the top three manufacturing powerhouses in the continent.

This major move by the electronics manufacturing giant seems to seek to remedy the labor issues the company has experienced in recent years. There have been reports of suicides in the company’s Shenzen plant between 2010 and 2011. Just last Friday, August 7th, the company confirmed the death of yet one more employee in its Zhengzhou factory. A labor rights group reported that the death was yet again, another suicide.

In this plan to move operations to India, the company aims to build around 10 to 12 factories in the Central Asian nation, powering an estimated 50,000 jobs. These Foxconn centers will not only be manufacturing hubs: Foxconn also plans to install data centers in India.

The move to India is targeted for completion by the year 2020.

There is no word yet about whether Foxconn will manufacture mobiles in the India manufacturing and data centers, but analysts are assuming that this will be the case.

Foxconn has a client base that includes Apple, Amazon, Blackberry, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Xiaomi, among others. Its most notable products include Apple’s iPods, iPhones, iPads, Amazon’s Kindle, the Playstation 4, the Wii U, and the Xbox One.