Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Limited (RSBVL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, completed the deal with California-based Sanmina Corporation on Monday to set up an electronic manufacturing unit. Through the partnership, the country’s largest private sector company is planning to create a world-class electronic manufacturing hub in India. The shares of Reliance Industries hit an intra-day high of ₹2,417 today.

“This partnership will leverage Sanmina’s 40 years of advanced manufacturing experience and Reliance’s expertise and leadership in the Indian business ecosystem. The day-to-day business will continue to be managed by Sanmina’s management team in Chennai, which will be seamless from an employee and customer perspective,” Reliance Industries says in a statement.

The JV will prioritise high technology infrastructure hardware for industries such as communications networking (5G, cloud infrastructure, hyperscale datacenters), medical and healthcare systems, industrial and cleantech, and defense and aerospace.

Reliance is also planning to create a ‘Manufacturing Technology Center of Excellence’ through the JV to support the start-up ecosystem. Notably, the manufacturing of products will take place in Sanmina’s 100-acre campus in Chennai.

The development comes at a time when India is pushing for the domestic manufacturing of electronic products amidst the global chip shortage. By partnering with various stakeholders of the industry and by introducing a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for electronic manufacturers, the government is also aiming to overtake China and Vietnam as the global electronics manufacturing hub. Last month, Anil Agrawal-led Vedanta and Taiwanese electronics manufacturing major Foxconn set up India’s first semiconductor production plant in Gujarat worth ₹1.54 lakh crore.

In September this year, the government set up India’s first lithium cell facility in Tirupati by Chennai-based Munoth Industries Limited at an outlay of ₹165 crore.

Rajeev Chandrashekhar, the minister of state for electronics and information technology earlier said that India is aiming to achieve the production of electronic goods worth $300 billion by 2025-26. Of this, India is planning to export electronics goods worth $120 billion. India’s electronics exports crossed $16 billion in FY 2021-22. “Our vision is to edge past the target of $300 billion worth of electronic manufacturing and exports by 2025-26. It translates to ₹25 lakh crores, 24 times more than what it was when PM Modi took over in 2014 - 1.10 lakh crores," he said.

In September 2022, the country’s exports of electronic goods surged 5.87% to $1,916 million, compared to $1,168 million for the same month in the year-ago period.

India's Electronics Industry

RIL unit forms JV with US-based Sanmina to set up electronics manufacturing facility