Foxconn, the famous (and infamous) Taiwanese company that produces (among others) iPods and iPhones in China it had agreed last year to set up a factory in Brazil to circumvent Brazilian protectionism that would otherwise have charged imported iPods with heavy tariffs. For various reasons, linked to promised tax incentives that did not arrive, iPods Made in Brazil are not there yet, but in the meantime the factory produces iPhones.
The problem is that in America the iPhone 4 (the penultimate model) costs $549, while locally produced ones are offered for the equivalent of $1040. Of course, the price does not Foxconn, but its customer Apple. Brazilian consumers are rightly angry because they expected to pay less for a locally made product. A lively controversy opposes those who affirm that the American iPhone costs less because it is made in China where wages are $1.80 an hour, and those who instead observe that, at 600 reals a month, the Brazilian worker ends up being paid by the hour like a Chinese. The Brazilian government does not take a position and hopes that as production increases, prices will fall. Meanwhile, he has granted Foxconn (with benefit for Apple's accounts) not to pay the social security contributions relating to the workers of the large Jundaì factory.
Read the story also in the Rio Times
