India offers tax concessions to Apple to expand production

India has offered to allow Apple Inc. to import mobile handset components intended for use in local manufacturing tax free, a top government official said on Tuesday.

The tax concessions will be subject to the condition of increasing local value addition over a period of time.

Apple wants to expand its contract manufacturer’s facility in Bengaluru, union minister for electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar said on Tuesday, as the iPhone maker seeks a bigger share in the Indian market.

Apple last week started making the iPhone SE at its Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron’s plant in Bengaluru.

Among a set of tax concessions, Apple had initially sought a 15-year tax holiday for all components that it would import for setting up a manufacturing facility in India.

A panel of ministries rejected that demand and has instead offered a phased programme to increase the share of local production in the manufacturing, Aruna Sundararajan, secretary at the Ministry of electronics and IT, said.