Prasad clears Samsung investment on eve of his Korea visit

Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has cleared an investment proposal of Samsung in the field of electronics manufacturing, a day before leaving for South Korea to woo investments from companies.
"I have cleared Samsung's proposal under MSIPS (modified special incentive package scheme)," Prasad told reporters here, without disclosing details.
Samsung was among the first set of companies who showed interest in investing in India under MSIPS. Government in July 2013 had cleared Rs 406-crore investment proposal of Samsung in the field of mobile manufacturing.
Prasad will leave for a five-day visit to meet Korean technology giants and invite them to invest in India in the field of electronic manufacturing.

Government has set a target to have net zero import of electronics by 2020.
As per official estimates, Indian electronics market will be around USD 400 billion (about Rs 24 lakh crore) by 2020 and in the absence of corrective measures to boost electronics manufacturing the imports will be around USD 300 billion (about Rs 18 lakh crore) by the same year.

The Minister will meet senior officials from Samsung and LG Electronics in Seoul.
"The whole focus of my would be to impress upon them the need to invest in the field of consumer electronics, mobile phones, smart cards, batteries etc," Prasad said.

He said he will persuade Samsung to work in Indian infrastructure segment.
"Samsung is also part of infrastructure. I am also going to impress upon them and persuade to come in infrastructure in a big way because we are now looking at smart cities development," Prasad said.
Besides meeting with industry players, the Minister will attend a bilateral meeting on information communication technology being organised Korean Technology Minister in Busan.
Key senior officials with whom Prasad is scheduled to meet include Samsung's President and CEO Samsung IT and Mobile Communication JK Shin, Samsung SDI CEO Sang Jin Park, LG Electronics Vice Chairman and CEO Bon-Joon Koo and LG Chem's President of the Energy Solution Young Soo Kwon.