Electronics helps HCM City become leading production centre

Vo Van Hoan, Vice Chairman of the HCM City People's Committee, said the city is now home to 50 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects with an investment capital of more than 5 billion USD and an area of land of more than 326 ha.

Seventeen are electronic projects with an investment capital of 20 million USD located in industrial parks, export processing zones and high-tech zones.

The city has lured many global leading brands including Intel, Samsung, First Solar, Furukawa Automotive Parts, and Renesas.

Early this year, both Intel and Samsung simultaneously increased their investment and committed to long-term investment in Vietnam, despite current restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Intel Products Vietnam Company had increased its investment capital by 475 million USD, bringing its total investment capital to more than 1.5 billion USD.

Alan Danner, CFO of Intel Vietnam, said Intel Vietnam has manufactured and exported more than 2 billion microprocessor and semiconductor products. By the end of last year, total export value reached 50 billion USD and created nearly 7,000 jobs.

This has helped Intel increase its production of 5G products, Intel Core processors with Intel Hybrid technology, and 10th generation Intel Core processors.

Samsung Electronics HCMC CE Complex Co Ltd has agreed to adjust project information and transform their business from a high-tech enterprise to an export processing enterprise.

Samsung's project in HCM City Hi-Tech Park was first licensed on September 25, 2014. The investment capital has now reached over 2 billion USD. The project was built on an area of more than 93 ha with a production capacity of 19 million products per year; bringing an annual average turnover of 4.2 billion USD. Of this figure, import value was more than 2.5 billion USD and export value 3.6 billion USD. This contributed more than 2.7 trillion VND (118 million USD) to the State coffers.

Experts said the transformation not only generates incentives for export, but also provide practical support to businesses in the supply chain of Samsung, especially businesses in the field of supporting industry in HCM City and neighbouring areas.

Hua Quoc Hung, head of the management board of industrial and export processing zones of HCM City, said there are 45 FDI projects in the electronics sector operating in industrial zones and export processing zones with an investment capital of more than 1.7 billion USD.

He said the US First Solar project located in the Southeast Industrial Park has an investment capital of more than 1 billion USD.

Chan See Chong, General Director of First Solar Vietnam Manufacturing Co Ltd, told Vietnam Investment Review that his company had invested in building two factories in Dong Nam Industrial Park. First Solar Group currently has three main production facilities in the US, Malaysia and Vietnam.

First Solar has announced that the total investment capital for these two new factories was 830 million USD. The first plant began manufacturing Series 6 solar modules at the end of 2018.

When both factories are in full operation, First Solar's total capacity will reach 2.4 GW per year, he said.

The company also doubled its production capacity to about 5.31 million modules per year, compared with the initial expected capacity of 2.6 million modules per year. Products are expected to be exported mainly to America and Europe.

A representative of First Solar said they will have more opportunities to discuss with local authorities and real estate investors to focus on developing solar power projects so as to meet Vietnam’s market demand.