Nike, Adidas shoe-maker has a Rs 2,000 crore plan to set up shop in India

A subsidiary of the world’s biggest maker of branded sports footwear Pou Chen will invest Rs 2,302 crore ($280.86 million) to set up a manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.

The Taiwanese footwear maker for brands like Nike, Adidas, New Balance, and Timberland manufactured and globally shipped over 272 million pairs of shoes in 2022.

“We hope this would be the first of many investments to come (in India),” Pou Chen Vice President George Liu said in a meeting streamed online with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin.

The investment would create about 20,000 jobs in Tamil Nadu over a span of 12 years, according to a Reuters report, and comes nearly a year after Taiwanese peer Hong Fu Group signed a deal to invest Rs 1000 crore to make footwear in the southern state.

Tamil Nadu made 45% of India’s footwear exports over the last five years with many brands, including Giorgio Armani and Gucci, according to a government report.

Tamil Nadu has been a popular destination for international manufacturers like Apple suppliers Foxconn, Salcomp and Pegatron, as they look to diversify their footprint away from China and Taiwan.