Taiwan’s Foxconn leaving a key $19.5 billion joint venture with Vedanta will not affect India’s semiconductor programme, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told a tv channel. Foxconn in a statement said the decision to end the joint venture was mutual.
Let’s have a look at the facts:
- Both Foxconn and Vedanta have no prior chip-making experience or technology. They were expected to source it from a technology partner.
- “Both Foxconn and Vedanta are committed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India policy and India’s semiconductor programme. Foxconn withdrawing from the joint venture with Vedanta will have no impact on India’s semiconductor programme,” said Mr. Vaishnaw, the Union Information Technology Minister.
- Vedanta and Foxconn had signed agreements in September 2022 to invest $19.5 billion to set up semiconductor and display production plants in Gujarat, the home state of PM Modi. In May this year, the joint venture was reported to be “struggling” to tie up with a technology partner.
- Both companies have now found their technology partners, people with direct knowledge of the matter told the tv channel.
- Vedanta and Foxconn had got on board STMicro for licensing technology, but the government had made clear it wanted the European chipmaker to have “more skin in the game”, such as a stake in the partnership, a news agency reported in May.
- The capital markets regulator SEBI also last month fined Vedanta for breaching disclosure rules by publishing a press statement that made it appear it partnered with Foxconn to make semiconductors in India, as the deal was with Vedanta’s holding company.
- As the joint venture comes to an end, Vedanta said it is committed to its semiconductor project and has lined up other partners to set up India’s first foundry.
- “It was well known that both companies had no prior semiconductor experience or technology and were expected to source technology from a partner,” Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar tweeted.
- Vedanta today said it has redoubled efforts to fulfil PM Modi’s vision for semiconductors and affirmed that India remains pivotal in repositioning global semiconductor supply chains.
(With inputs from agencies)
