Chinese premier visits Foxconn, suggests Apple assembler refocus on China rather than US
China Premier Li Keqiang visited a Foxconn production center, and reportedly told the Apple partner's CEO to set up its "whole industrial chain" in China, rather than expanding further into other countries like the U.S.
Li visited Foxconn's Zhengzhou facility on May 9, following Foxconn chairman Terry Gou's visit to the U.S. According to multiple reports out of China, Li reportedly told Gou that the Chinese government will continue its efforts to make a business-friendly environment, and that Foxconn should sustain focus on China, rather than in other countries.
"We will continue to expand our development, and optimize the business environment," Li said during the visit. "China has a huge market and lots of talent, it is the best investment place for expanding manufacturing."
Li Keqiang is the current Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. He is one of the leading figures behind the country's economic policy, a reformist calling for lighter governmental involvement in Chinese business, and is the second-ranked member of the Communist Party of China.
Foxconn had no additional comment on U.S. investment following the meeting, but said in a statement to Reuters that it was committed to investing in China.
In January, Gou revealed Foxconn was considering a joint $7 billion investment with Apple that would go toward the creation of U.S. display production plant. It was later reported that Foxconn subsidiary Sharp would take a lead role in running the plant. Gou last month expressed concerns over building displays in the U.S., however, citing a lack of government incentives, supply chain hurdles and labor issues.
More recently, Gou met with President Donald Trump at the end of April. Specific details of the meeting remain unavailable, but the two-day long discussion reportedly centered on job creation, the sale of Toshiba's memory chip business, and investment in the U.S.
Following the second day of meetings at the White House, Gou said that the company was "planning a number of investments" in the U.S. While the scope of the investments aren't known, Gou also noted that they would "include both capital-intensive and skilled labor-intensive and high-tech investment."
Gou's meeting was allegedly arranged with the assistance of SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son, who himself met Trump in 2016. At the time the President touted SoftBank's commitment of $50 billion to U.S. operations as part of the "vision fund," which could create up to 50,000 new jobs. Apple has invested $1 billion into the Softbank fund.
Li visited Foxconn's Zhengzhou facility on May 9, following Foxconn chairman Terry Gou's visit to the U.S. According to multiple reports out of China, Li reportedly told Gou that the Chinese government will continue its efforts to make a business-friendly environment, and that Foxconn should sustain focus on China, rather than in other countries.
"We will continue to expand our development, and optimize the business environment," Li said during the visit. "China has a huge market and lots of talent, it is the best investment place for expanding manufacturing."
Li Keqiang is the current Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. He is one of the leading figures behind the country's economic policy, a reformist calling for lighter governmental involvement in Chinese business, and is the second-ranked member of the Communist Party of China.
Foxconn had no additional comment on U.S. investment following the meeting, but said in a statement to Reuters that it was committed to investing in China.
In January, Gou revealed Foxconn was considering a joint $7 billion investment with Apple that would go toward the creation of U.S. display production plant. It was later reported that Foxconn subsidiary Sharp would take a lead role in running the plant. Gou last month expressed concerns over building displays in the U.S., however, citing a lack of government incentives, supply chain hurdles and labor issues.
More recently, Gou met with President Donald Trump at the end of April. Specific details of the meeting remain unavailable, but the two-day long discussion reportedly centered on job creation, the sale of Toshiba's memory chip business, and investment in the U.S.
Following the second day of meetings at the White House, Gou said that the company was "planning a number of investments" in the U.S. While the scope of the investments aren't known, Gou also noted that they would "include both capital-intensive and skilled labor-intensive and high-tech investment."
Gou's meeting was allegedly arranged with the assistance of SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son, who himself met Trump in 2016. At the time the President touted SoftBank's commitment of $50 billion to U.S. operations as part of the "vision fund," which could create up to 50,000 new jobs. Apple has invested $1 billion into the Softbank fund.
Comments
The comment regarding india by the OP is way off. People in India already make more money than Chinese workers, not to mention India (as Apple has discovered) is very protectionist. In order to sell iPhones there, Apple has already started building assembly plants and support sites for IT etc. and even still they won't actually manufacture anything from raw materials and it's still taking years to iron out including re-writing laws.
Plus my takeaway from the the article is not that Trump's demand is being taken seriously, it's the exact opposite. The Chinese listened, politely smiled, turned around and then laughed at the idea. They know there are far too many road blocks.
The Trump supporters on this site make me laugh. They all have a total disconnect from the details of reality, just like the fleshy cheeto they worship. The US would probably suffer more as the result of a trade war with China, than China itself. The rest of the world still needs China's scale of production. It would take a decade for the US to catch up, at an enormous expense that we simply can't afford so long as we are the world police. Now, if you want to pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and close our bases in Asia and Europe and repurpose maybe 20% of our military spending to rebuild and re-educate, perhaps we could do it, but allot of things need to change first. It's far easier to say it, than to actually do it.
And you don't ONLY drill for oil in the middle east.
Anything built in the US would be for show and appeasement IMHO. India/Vietnam/Indonesia could be a different story, countries where the labor might be had on the cheap just as in China.
Donald "Armada" Trump seems to have invited derision more than than anything else, at least so far.
EDIT: I don't know how often you read international news, so a couple of links in case you missed recent developments:
http://time.com/4757190/north-korea-gas-shortages-china/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/04/north-korea-warns-china-grave-consequences-first-direct-rebuke/