Brazil's Iphone Investment Falls Short On Promises Of Jobs, Lower Prices

[Ron Burgundy]

By Brad Haynes ITU, Brazil (Reuters) - The Brazilian iPhone was meant to mark a new era. When Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group agreed in April 2011 to make Apple products here, President Dilma Rousseff and her advisers promised that up to $12 billion in investments over six years would transform the Brazilian technology sector, putting it on the cutting edge of touch screen development. Foxconn has created only a small fraction of the 100,000 jobs that the government projected, and most of the work is in low-skill assembly. There is little sign that it has catalyzed Brazil's technology sector or created much of a local supply chain.    The iPhones now rolling off an assembly line near São Paulo, the only ones in the world made outside China, carry a retail price tag of nearly $1,000 for a 32-gigabyte iPhone 5S without a contract - among the highest prices in the world and about twice what they sell for in the U.S. That Brazil has so little to show for the Foxconn investment underscores the shortcomings of its industrial policy, defined by costly tax incentives that have driven a widening government budget deficit without spurring growth.

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