According to reports, a subsidiary of the top Taiwanese footwear manufacturer Pou Chen will invest about $281 million in India to establish a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. The footwear company, which is recognised for producing shoes for brands like Nike, Adidas, Timberland, and New Balance, would make several investments in India in the future.
Pou Chen's vice president, George Liu, in a meeting with Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin, said: “We hope this would be the first of many investments to come (in India).” Pou Chen manufactured and shipped more than 272 million pairs of shoes in FY22 globally, up around 14 per cent from a year earlier. It already has plants in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
Over a 12-year period, the investment might generate 20,000 new jobs in Tamil Nadu, according to the news agency Reuters. The investment will occur over a year after the Hong Fu Group, another Taiwanese footwear company, agreed to invest Rs 1,000 crore to establish a footwear manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.
In April of last year, an MoU was inked with the company's top executives and the government organisation responsible for promoting investment in Tamil Nadu, Guidance. Once the manufacturing factory is fully operating, this MoU was intended to generate 20,000 jobs, with the majority of those workers being women.
The unit would also increase exports of footwear. The investments under this MoU will be made in stages over the following three to five years. Hong Fu produces footwear for numerous multinational companies, including Nike, Converse, and Puma.
Over the past five years, Tamil Nadu has produced 45% of India's footwear exports, with prestigious brands like Gucci and Giorgio Armani purchasing raw materials from the region or producing their own products there.
However, Pou Chen is not the only large corporation to locate a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. In an effort to diversify their manufacturing, Apple suppliers Foxconn, Pegatron, and Salcomp have also increased production in Tamil Nadu and India.
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