Foxconn to Revive Operations from Chennai

The Foxconn factory at Sriperumbudur near Chennai, which is closed since 2014, is set to revive its operations from the end of this month, Tamil Nadu industries minister M.C. Sampath informed the state assembly.

The minister said government representatives from Tamil Nadu had met the Taiwanese company’s officials recently to revive Foxconn’s closed manufacturing facilities.

When the plant in Sriperumbadur was shut down in February last year, over 8,000 contract employees and trainees lost their jobs. Foxconn recently re-employed over 2,000 workers of closed facilities in Chennai for its assembly unit at Sri City special economic zone in Andhra Pradesh.

The Taiwan-based electronics equipment maker was a major supplier of motherboards to Nokia Oyj and had to close down its three facilities for lack of orders from Nokia, which shut operations on 1 November, 2014 after a Rs.10,000 crore tax dispute with the tax department.

Microsoft Corp., which acquired the mobile phone assets of Nokia worldwide for $7.2 billion in 2014, kept the Chennai plant out of the deal. Production at three Foxconn facilities was suspended in February 2015 after the Finnish company halted operations.

“The state government is taking very serious efforts for revival of the Nokia plant along with the component manufacturers. Chief minister deputed a team of officials to Taiwan recently to hold discussions with global companies like Foxconn,” K. Rosaiah, governor Tamil Nadu, said in his address to the first session of the 15th Tamil Nadu assembly last month.