When Flextronics’ factory at Sriperumbdur near Chennai went on stream in 2006, a senior company official then told Business Line that nearly 8,500 employees would work in the unit in 24-36 months. However, after nearly seven years of operations, there are only 4,000.
“The Government has not encouraged domestic electronics component manufacturers. Too much of import is hurting our plans,” said Ashok Dhawan, Country Manager, Flextronics.
The utilisation level at the factory, located 40 km off Chennai, stands at 35 per cent, against 100 per cent at the company’s China plant. “We are now seeing whether some of the products from China can be manufactured at Sriperumbudur,” Dhawan told newspersons here.
“Revenue from the Sriperumbudur factory is around $100 million. It is nowhere near our hopes of three to four times more,” he said while announcing the setting up of the company’s Global Business Services centre in Chennai.
The $24-billion Flextronics helps customers like Nokia and Microsoft design, build, ship and service their products through a network of facilities in over 30 countries including India and China. Dhawan said the Government understood the industry’s issue and there was some positive noise coming from there to help the industry. But, “the government is killing one industry and encouraging the other through huge imports,” he said.