India downplays Foxconn disruption from Chinese staff pullback

India’s government said Foxconn’s operations in the country remain largely unaffected despite the company recalling some of its Chinese engineers and technicians in recent months.

S. Krishnan, secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, told reporters in Taipei that Foxconn had managed the adjustment smoothly, relying on staff from Taiwan, the U.S., and local Indian workers to keep production stable. “Operations did not really suffer significantly,” he said.

Foxconn, Apple’s top iPhone assembler, has been expanding in India as part of efforts to diversify production away from China, particularly amid the risk of triple-digit U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. The company already runs a plant near Chennai and is building another near Bengaluru.

Bloomberg previously reported that hundreds of Chinese employees were asked to return home, though the reasons remain unclear. Both Foxconn and Apple declined to comment.

The backdrop includes lingering India-China tensions since their 2020 border clash, which led New Delhi to tighten restrictions on Chinese firms and ban dozens of Chinese apps. Relations have warmed somewhat, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting President Xi Jinping last month in Beijing for the first time in seven years.

Krishnan emphasized that Foxconn is “committed to see through all the investments in India,” noting its expansion has been “very significant.”