Karnataka to hold talks with Apple

The Karnataka government will hold talks with iPhone maker Apple’s officials in US next week to invite them to invest in Bengaluru.

Talking to DH, state IT Minister Priyank Kharge said the government is gearing up to meet them directly.

“We have succeeded in getting the assembly plant of the iconic iPhones at Bengaluru which has been set up by Apple’s Taiwan based-original equipment manufacturer Wistron. We are ready to send a delegation to hold meeting Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California,” he said.

The state government’s initiative assumes significance as the central government on Monday stated that it will not be able to extend tax and duty related concessions to Apple under the new GST regime as the effort is to promote Make in India.

Kharge said the state government wants to further strengthen Apple’s manufacturing initiatives by bringing the complete ecosystem here along with other software development activities.

Apple started assembling iPhone SE model at the Bengaluru facility under its Make in India initiative in April this year.

“The state government is ready to give concession within its jurisdictions like infrastructure support, waiving some taxes and free land among others. We have already held discussion with them and it will continue in future for bringing more investment from Apple,” he said.

Apple also runs App Accelerator in Bengaluru, the only accelerator from Apple outside its headquarters, that supports developers to build tools for the iOS platform.

The accelerator, conceived for hand-holding developers with skills and tools and on-board them about best practices while working with iOS platform, began its operation in March this year after the company CEO Tim Cook declared its opening in May last year. It already trained more than 2,000 developers.