Centre prods Nokia to expand biz in India

Government officials today met Nokia Senior Vice-President Jean François Baril to discuss the possibility of expanding the mobile phone manufacturer’s production facilities in India. A fifth of Nokia’s global phone production is in India. The company exports phones worth around $2 billion (Rs 9,086 crore) from its plant in Chennai.

Today’s lunch meeting with Baril — who is in charge of Nokia’s sourcing and procurement — was attended by three officials of the Department of Information Technology (DIT), one from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), one from the Planning Commission and members from the Indian Cellular Association and Manufacturers Association for Information Technology.

The meeting was part of a government initiative to further boost hardware exports from India, which stand at around $4 billion (Rs 18,172 crore).

Half of the total exports are mobile phones.

Dell, for instance, began exporting PCs from its plant in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu about two weeks ago.

Dell’s capacity, for both the local market as well as for exports, was increased from 400,000 units per annum initially, to about 800,000 units now.

An official present at the meeting said five of Nokia’s global suppliers have set shop in the Nokia special economic zone in Chennai.

There are 20 other Indian suppliers operating in the zone.

“Nokia is looking at manufacturing five per cent of its components in India over the next one year. We are trying to give a policy and duty regime for all mobile handset makers to do so,” the official said.