Samsung gets license to add $3bn to Vietnam complex
Tuesday, November 25, 2014, 11:17 GMT+7
A fresh US$3 billion investment by South Korean electronics giant Samsung in a northern Vietnamese province has officially been licensed, the Foreign Investment Agency announced Monday.
The additional investment is earmarked for expanding Samsung’s existing $2 billion production complex in Thai Nguyen Province, according to the agency under the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment.
The new facility will produce smartphones, laptops, smart TVs, smart vacuum cleaners, and medical equipment.
In this month alone, the investment ministry has licensed three major Samsung projects.
The South Korean company has received an investment license for a $1.4 billion project to set up a consumer electronics plant in Ho Chi Minh City. The project will be developed by Singapore-based Samsung Asia Pte. Ltd.
The Samsung screen-making unit has also been permitted to build a $1 billion factory to make LCD screens in the northern province of Bac Ninh, also home to an existing $2.5 billion complex.
Samsung’s total investment in Vietnam has thus risen to nearly $10 billion.
“The latest licensed project in Thai Nguyen officially marked the milestone from which Vietnam becomes a top production base of Samsung,” said Tran Duy Dong, head of the division that oversees economic zones under the investment ministry.
“This is because Samsung’s investment in Vietnam is possibly bigger than in China.”
Despite three additional investments by Samsung, the amount of new foreign investment Vietnam attracted in the year to November 20 still dipped nearly 17 percent from the same period last year, according to data released Monday by the Foreign Investment Agency.
FDI attraction in the Jan-Nov period topped $17.33 billion, down 16.7 percent from a year earlier, whereas FDI disbursement reached $11.2 billion, up 6.2 percent year on year.
The export revenue of the FDI sector in the Jan-Nov period soared 14.1 percent year on year to $92.21 billion, while imports reached $76.67 billion, up 12.5 percent.
The foreign sector thus enjoyed a $15.54 billion trade surplus in the 11-month period.
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