Amazon's team including Amit Agarwal, Global SVP and India head, joined a virtual meeting with Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad to reaffirm its commitment to "Make in India" initiative. The leading e-commerce player will soon start manufacturing its Fire TV stick and other products in India.
The meeting was also attended by Chetan Krishnaswamy, Vice President, Public Policy of Amazon India on Wednesday. The e-commerce giant said this will be the first Amazon manufacturing line in India.
"Held a very good conversation with Amit Agarwal and Chetan Krishna of Amazon India today. Delighted to share that soon Amazon will commence manufacturing of electronics products like FireTV stick in India," Prasad shared on Twitter and Koo.
In the meeting, Prasad also pitched to the Amazon India executives to help expand the reach of products made by India's artisans and Ayurvedic to global markets through e-commerce. The minister also said the Ministry of IT is setting up several digital villages and Amazon India can pick a few and develop them as fully digital villages. Amazon should also work with small local shops and make them a stakeholder in the larger efforts of Amazon to grow its business, he added.
"We welcome Amazon's decision to set up a manufacturing line in Chennai, as it will enhance domestic production capacities, and create jobs as well. This will further our mission of creating a Atmanirbhar Bharat which is digitally empowered," Prasad said in a statement.
What will Amazon manufacture in India?
In an official blog post, Amazon said it will commence its manufacturing efforts with Cloud Network Technology, a Foxxcon subsidiary in Chennai, and start production later this year. Amazon will locally manufacture hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Sticks in India every year and will scale up the capacity by expanding to other cities depending not he demand from consumers.
"Amazon is committed to partner with the Indian government to advance the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. We have pledged to invest US $1 billion to digitize 10 million small and medium businesses, help Indian businesses sell worldwide thereby enabling US $10B in cumulative exports, and create an additional 1M jobs by 2025," Agarwal said.
