Foxconn chief Young Liu, TRB Rajaa's viral drive may bring 'good news' for Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu Industries Minister T R B Rajaa personally drove the Foxconn chairman back in August. (File photo)

Back in August 2024, chairman of the world's largest electronics manufacturer Foxconn Young Liu and Tamil Nadu Industries Minister TRB Rajaa went on a drive in Chennai. The pictures of that drive went viral. And that drive might now bring good news for the state.

TRB Rajaa received Liu at Chennai airport. The minister personally drove the chairman to the inauguration of the Industrial Housing facility in Vallam Vadagal back then.

What transpired during that drive was one of the most compelling investment pitches made by an Indian state in decades. Details of that drive remained undisclosed until now.

Earlier on Wednesday, Rajaa revealed that the discussion during the drive ranged from doing value addition in critical minerals to enhancing storage capabilities to improving the component ecosystem.

While addressing the Business Standard Tamil Nadu Round Table 2025, Rajaa said, “We might soon have very good news, hopefully, coming out of that drive. We spoke about the capabilities of Tamil Nadu, how we need to do more value addition on critical minerals, and do more on the existing capabilities to build on storage. He also spoke about how he is looking at storage in the future. We also spoke about going down the value chain, bringing clusters for component manufacturing to enable whatever the manufacturing is — already you know what they manufacture."

“For that manufacturing, we wanted to bring more of the components into India to increase the percentile of the components that are already available, and we have done that,” Rajaa added at the Round Table, according to Business Standard.

When asked about how this unconventional investment pitch took place, the minister explained: "I was just wondering why that single drive went viral. In my mind, it was a very casual request. I said we have one hour. It was one hour with the chairman of Foxconn — not many people get that, and I would rather have it with him. We actually removed the driver and enabled one more in the car. I took my managing director of Guidance in the car. I drove my car."

Earlier, there were media reports that the electronics giant, Foxconn, has lined up plans to diversify its presence in India beyond smartphones, including areas like electric vehicles (EVs), energy, and digital health. There were also reports that Foxconn is likely to open its second-largest battery plant in Tamil Nadu and is looking for land near Manalur in Tiruvallur district, about 50 km north of Chennai.

“We are eager to bring our 3+3 future industry initiative to India,” the Foxconn chief had said during his visit back in August, adding that talks happened with Rajaa in Tamil Nadu about potential collaboration on Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS).