Samsung to start manufacturing TV sets in India by December
As per the report, Samsung India has written to the government seeking permission to import TV sets till December 2020 to make sure that there is no impact on 'business continuity' during the festive season.
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Reportedly, Samsung in a letter to IT and electronics minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on September 28 stated that maintaining the “current threshold volumes is pivotal for setting up the domestic TV manufacturing facility.”
It is pertinent to mention that the government had put television sets on the restricted list of imports on July 30. It was a part of its strategy to discourage imports from China and boost local manufacturing.
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The companies need licences to import TV sets while the government has not issued any such permit.
In its letter to the minister, Samsung said that the import impediments were “against the ethos of ease of doing business”, and imports held at customs were impacting business continuity.
“As we are setting up the TV manufacturing plant by December 2020, we request for smooth operations and business continuity,” it added.
Samsung, earlier, had a manufacturing plant in Chennai, but the company shut it down in 2018 after the government imposed import duties on open-cell television panels.
Since manufacturing TVs in India became expensive, the Korean company started importing televisions from Vietnam at zero duty through the free trade agreement route.
Meanwhile, Samsung India will continue to import high-end models like 75-inches and above. Currently, the company is manufacturing some of the TV models in India through contract manufacturer Dixon since early this year.
-PTC News
