Indonesia plays hardball with smartphone manufacturers

By Charlotte Greenfield JAKARTA (Reuters) - When Polytron became the first Indonesian company to produce 4G-capable smartphones last year, it changed the 'Manufactured in China' inscription on its handsets to 'Made in Kudus,' a town in Central Java. Polytron relocated production from China to comply with 'local-content' rules introduced in 2012. The regulations have raised concerns about higher manufacturing costs and hung question marks over an industry championed by the Indonesian government. The United States has pressed Indonesia to relax the rules, which it says will hamper efforts of tech giants such as Apple Inc to expand into one of the world's last big markets where use of smartphones has yet to truly take off.



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