Apple pledged to pump more than $350 billion into the US economy over the next five years through a mix of fresh investment and tax payments on an overseas cash hoard.

In a statement, the company said it would make a record tax payment of $38 billion on funds of $250 billion currently held offshore which it plans to repatriate to the US. Apple is taking advantage of changes to the tax code passed in December 2017, which permanently lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent and slashed the one-time repatriation rate for cash stored overseas from 35 per cent to 15.5 per cent.

Forming part of its five-year funding pledge, Apple allocated $30 billion to capital expenditure, which includes plans to invest more than $10 billion to expand its domestic data centres.

It is unclear whether the investment will be added to, or be part of, its previously reported spending estimates. In a November 2017 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple forecast capital expenditure of $16 billion in its fiscal 2018 alone. The company spent a total of $14.9 billion in its fiscal 2017, which ended on 30 September.

The company also plans to increase investment in its Advanced Manufacturing Fund from $1 billion to $5 billion. The fund provides backing to existing US-based manufacturers and assists other companies to enter the market.

Manufacturing
New jobs are on the agenda as well: Apple promised to add 20,000 new employees to its 84,000-strong workforce through hiring at a yet-to-be-built US campus and its other locations throughout the country. The company will announce the location of the new campus, which will house technical support for Apple customers, later this year.

“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,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

The company said it will spend around $55 billion on procurement from US suppliers in 2018, which Financial Times reported is $5 billion more than in 2017.

Apple also detailed plans to beef up its efforts in the field of education, stating action is needed to address a shortfall in coding skills. The company said the so-called iOS app economy had created 1.6 million jobs in the US to date and generated $5 billion in revenue for domestic app developers during 2017 alone.