The exports will be under the Performance Linked Incentive scheme to make India a manufacturing hub for smartphones

The Centre, through the empowered committee, has approved the export of mobile phones worth $100 billion under the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme. The empowered committee is made of the NITI Aayog CEO, secretaries of the economic affairs, expenditure, revenue, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

Senior officials told The Economic Times that five applicants are foreign, seven are Indian and six are in the components manufacturing scheme. The applications will be placed before the cabinet this week. The Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the extraordinary response to the PLI shows enormous trust of the global community in India’s manufacturing capability and leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

According to The Economic Times report, the PLI scheme aims to make India a manufacturing hub for smartphones. It is aimed to attract manufacturers looking to move out of China amid Sino-US trade tensions. The report said that the PLI scheme even looks to draw companies from manufacturing hubs such as Vietnam.

With Foxconn and Wistron already having plants in India, Pegatron which is Apple’s second largest contract manufacturer is looking to set up its factory and is talking to states like Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Not to be left behind, Samsung is also set to ramp up its production to handsets worth $50 billion in the next five years.