CHENNAI (Reuters) - India's Tamil Nadu state said on Tuesday that a joint venture of Corning (NYSE:GLW) agreed to invest 10 billion rupees ($120.4 million), underscoring the growing importance of the south Asian country as a manufacturing hub.
The joint venture (JV), named Bharat Innovative Glass Technologies, is a tie-up between U.S. electronics maker Corning, a key parts supplier for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Indian telecommunications company Optiemus Infracom.
The new facility will make front cover glass for mobile phones and phone parts makers in India, the state government said, without specifying the particular brands to which the glass would be supplied.
The facility in Tamil Nadu is the company's first manufacturing plant after the JV was formed in September.
The $155 billion Indian electronics market is benefitting from a global shift in supply chains away from China, with additional support from the Indian government's production-linked incentives aimed at promoting local manufacturing.
Several contract manufacturers, including the world's largest, Taiwan's Foxconn, as well as other Apple suppliers such as Pegatron and Finland's Salcomp have signed agreements worth several million dollars to expand their operations in India.
Earlier this month, Tamil Nadu said it had entered into agreements totalling 6.64 trillion rupees in investments with investors ranging from technology heavyweights Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) to local conglomerates such as the Adani Group.
A number of Indian states, including Telangana, Gujarat, and Maharashtra have signed investment deals with companies such as Maruti Suzuki, the Tata Group, and the Adani Group.
($1 = 83.0890 Indian rupees)