By Aditya Kalra
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Foxconn Chairman Young Liu to discuss the latter’s investment plans on Wednesday, weeks after New Delhi started investigating possible discriminatory hiring practices at a Foxconn plant following a Reuters report.
Modi “highlighted the wonderful opportunities India offers in futuristic sectors” to Liu at the meeting, he said in a post on X that included photos of the pair.
“We also had excellent discussions on their investment plans in India in states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh,” Modi wrote.
Modi sees Foxconn’s iPhone factory in India and Apple’s expansion of its supply chain in the South Asian nation, beyond China, as potentially helping the world’s most populous country move up the economic-value chain.
A Reuters investigation published in June found that Foxconn excluded married women from assembly jobs at its main Indian iPhone plant in Tamil Nadu state.
Foxconn acknowledged some lapses in hiring practices in 2022 and said it had worked to address the issues, but said it “vigorously refutes allegations of employment discrimination.”
Taiwan’s Foxconn in recent years has expanded in India, where it makes iPhones and products for other smartphone brands, and has plans to move into AirPods and chipmaking.
Still, Foxconn withdrew in July last year from a $19.5 billion semiconductor joint venture with Indian conglomerate Vedanta, in a setback to Modi’s chipmaking plans for India.
Modi’s government ordered Tamil Nadu to provide a “detailed report” and government officials visited the Foxconn factory to question executives about hiring practices, but New Delhi has not yet released any findings.
Modi’s post on X on Wednesday did not address any of those issues and the prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking details about the talks.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Munsif VengattilEditing by Bernadette Baum)
