Apple Supplier Foxlink Said to Have Halted Production at an Indian Plant After Massive Fire

Apple provider Foxlink has halted manufacturing at its meeting facility within the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and evacuated 400 of its workers after an enormous hearth on Monday, two native authorities officers instructed Reuters.

Foxlink makes cables for iPhones. Roughly 50 p.c of the equipment on the facility was broken and half of the constructing collapsed, mentioned J Ramanaiah, who leads the Disaster Response and Fire Services Department for Tirupati district within the state, the place the incident occurred.

Management has estimated harm of Rs. 100 crore on the facility, he mentioned, including there have been no casualties.

Apple didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. An official for Foxlink didn’t reply to calls.

Meanwhile, just a few days again, the US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that expertise corporations like Apple and Google have expanded their cellphone manufacturing in India, which has impressed extra US corporations to deepen ties within the expertise sector with India. 

“I’m desperate to deepen out ties within the expertise sector. The US is advancing an method referred to as “friendshoring” to bolster the resilience of our provide chains. We are doing this by strengthening integration with our many trusted buying and selling partners-including India. We are seeing progress, for example, expertise corporations like Apple and Google have expanded their cellphone manufacturing in India,” Yellen mentioned. 

She made the feedback whereas talking on the roundtable with US and Indian Tech Business Leaders in Bengaluru in a gathering beneath the India’s G20 Presidency. 

In truth, Finland’s Salcomp, a provider to US tech group Apple, was additionally reportedly seeking to greater than double its workforce in India to just about 25,000 over the subsequent 2-3 years, an organization government mentioned earlier this month.