San Francisco, Jan 18 (IANS) Apple has announced to contribute $350 billion to the US economy over the next five years that includes an estimated $55 billion investment this year.

The investments will concentrate in three areas where Apple has had the greatest impact on job creation: direct employment by Apple, spending and investment with Apple’s domestic suppliers and manufacturers, and fuelling the fast-growing app economy which Apple created with iPhone and the App Store, the Cupertino-based iPhone maker said in a statement on Thursday.

“Apple is a success story that could only have happened in America, and we are proud to build on our long history of support for the US economy,” said CEO Tim Cook.

“We believe deeply in the power of American ingenuity, and we are focusing our investments in areas where we can have a direct impact on job creation and job preparedness,” he added.

The contribution will not include Apple’s ongoing tax payments, the tax revenues generated from employees’ wages and the sale of Apple products.

Apple is already responsible for creating and supporting over 2 million jobs across the US and expects to generate even more jobs as a result of the initiatives being announced on Thursday.

Planned capital expenditures in the US, investments in American manufacturing over five years and a record tax payment upon repatriation of overseas profits will account for approximately $75 billion of Apple’s direct contribution.

Apple, already the largest US taxpayer, anticipates repatriation tax payments of approximately $38 billion as required by recent changes to the tax law.

As part of the total investment, Apple will spend an estimated $55 billion with US suppliers and manufacturers in 2018.

Apple expects to invest over $30 billion in capital expenditures in the US over the next five years and create over 20,000 new jobs through hiring at existing campuses and opening a new one. Apple already employs 84,000 people in all 50 states.

“The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will initially house technical support for customers. The location of this new facility will be announced later in the year,” Apple said.

Over $10 billion of Apple’s expanded capital expenditures will be investments in data centres across the US.

The iOS app economy has created more than 1.6 million jobs in the US and generated $5 billion in revenue for American app developers in 2017.

“With demand for coding skills stronger than ever, today there are more than 500,000 unfilled programming-related positions across the country, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by 2020 there will be 1.4 million more software development jobs than applicants qualified to fill them,” Apple said.

–IANS
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