By Wen-Yee Lee
TAIPEI (Reuters) -India does not expect significant disruption to Foxconn’s operations in the country after the iPhone assembler ordered some employees from China to return home over the past few months, a top Indian government official said this week.
“Although some of the Chinese workers had to leave because they were asked to return, operations did not really suffer significantly,” S. Krishnan, secretary of India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, told reporters in Taipei, referring to Foxconn’s India operations.
“Foxconn has been in their plant near Chennai for the last five years and a new plant is coming up near Bengaluru. So they were able to manage with some of the workers there, some people from Taiwan, and some people from the United States,” Krishnan said late on Thursday during a visit to a trade show in Taiwan.
Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, asked hundreds of its engineers and technicians from mainland China to return home from its operations in India, Bloomberg News reported in July.
Foxconn and its client Apple have been seeking to ramp up iPhone production in India to mitigate the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatened triple-digit tariffs on Chinese goods, which are on hold as Beijing and Washington negotiate a trade deal.
Most of the iPhones Foxconn makes for Apple are assembled in China.
Krishnan said it was not clear why the employees from China were asked to return home.
Foxconn declined to comment. Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Tensions between India and China escalated following a 2020 military clash along their disputed Himalayan border. In response, India imposed restrictions on Chinese investments, banned hundreds of popular Chinese apps and cut air passenger routes between the two countries.
Relations between China and India have gradually improved in recent months, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month during his first visit to China in seven years.
“Our understanding is that Foxconn stands committed to see through all the investments in India … their expansion in India has been very significant,” Krishnan said.
(Reporting by Wen-Yee Lee; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Tom Hogue)
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