US President-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threat on China bodes well for the Indian electronics industry, provided the government takes steps to incentivise domestic design and manufacturing, said Ajai Chowdhry, co-founder of HCL and founder and chairman, EPIC Foundation.

Chowdhry, who was in the city to attend multiple events, has also met state IT department officials.

Trump has reportedly announced his intention to impose a blanket tariff ranging from 10 per cent to 20 per cent on all imports, and higher tariffs of 60 per cent on products imported from China.

“Trump has indicated Chinese products will have tariffs of 60 per cent. For all others, it would be 20 per cent. If India decides to make products and export to the US, we will have a 40 per cent advantage compared with China. But if we are slow, Vietnam will beat us to it,” Chowdhry told The Telegraph.

A task force set up by the ministry of electronics and information technology to bolster India’s capabilities in electronic and semiconductor products has submitted a report seeking incentives worth around ₹30,000 crore to boost domestic designing and manufacturing of electronics products.

“We have recommended about 40-45 products and urged the government to consider incentives for people looking to design them in India. Once the products are designed, there will be demand for chips. We have also recommended about 28 chips to be designed in India suitable for domestic requirements and we have quantified this as close to ₹30,000 crore, which has to be set aside for creating this ecosystem.”

“We submitted our recommendations two and half months ago. Meity is studying them and they have been asking a lot of questions and in the next couple of months they could take a decision,” he said.

Bengal should focus on building manufacturing capacity in electronics instead of chasing investments in semiconductor plants, he said.