India offers sops to Japan for investment in electronics sec

India today decided to extend incentives to Japan for encouraging investment in electronic system design and manufacturing in the country.
The government is seeking investment in the electronics sector against the backdrop of increasing imports of such items. Electronics imports crossed USD 30 billion last fiscal.
"India today extended a package of incentives to Japan in order to encourage investment in Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM)," an official release said.
In a meeting with Japan Business Federation Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura and top Japanese business representatives, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said: "Government has decided to offer a package of incentives to attract domestic and global investments into ESDM sector within Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMC) Schemes".

Under the scheme, the government provides financial assistance to a special purpose vehicle (SPV) which should be a legal entity.
For Greenfield EMCs, the assistance was restricted to 50 per cent of the project cost subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore for every 100 acres of land. For brownfield, it will be restricted to 75 per cent of the project cost subject to a ceiling of Rs 50 crore.

"Sharma invited all semiconductor wafer fabrication manufacturers in Japan to avail subsidy, other benefits and support being offered by the government to set up units in India," the release said.

He informed the Japanese delegation that the IT agreement of the WTO has not benefited India as far as manufacturing in the domestic hardware industry is concerned.
"In light of this many measures have been taken by the government to build a sound manufacturing environment in the field of electronics and IT and Japanese companies can benefit from them," it added.
Sharma also asked for cooperation in creative industries such as design, fashion, music, movies, animation and traditional craft.