After the wave of technology companies pouring capital into Vietnam 10 years ago, there seems to be a new wave of technology companies wanting to choose Vietnam as their destination.
Is there a new wave coming?
Last weekend, LG Group (Korea) came to Dong Nai to seek investment opportunities in items related to digital transformation and smart city construction in this province. According to LG’s representative, the Group is collaborating with a number of large corporations in the world to produce and supply 4.0 technology to deploy large smart city projects for a number of countries around the world.
“Dong Nai is implementing a smart city, so LG Group wants to participate in a number of projects, such as smart industrial parks, smart transportation, smart healthcare, smart factories, smart logistics, etc. The capital to implement a smart city is about 15,000 – 20,000 billion VND,” LG representative said.
After listening to LG’s proposals, Vice Chairwoman of Dong Nai Provincial People’s Committee, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoang, said that Dong Nai’s top concern is digital transformation and the province is implementing a number of smart city items. related to health, traffic… Therefore, LG should propose specific models in each field for the province to consider, and then implement the next steps.
These are just initial proposals, there are no specific projects yet, but this move once again shows that more and more technology corporations are “looking at” Vietnam and the fields they want to invest in. not simply manufacturing in the field of high technology as more than 10 years ago, when the wave of high technology began pouring into Vietnam, starting with Intel’s 1 billion USD chip project.
Even LG, after making its mark with the production complex of electronic devices and home electronics in Hai Phong (including 3 factories LG Electronics, LG Display, LG Innotek), at the end of last year, also set the ambition to make Da Nang become the Group’s information technology research and development (R&D) center in Vietnam. And now, although the information is not very specific, there is a new investment direction.
“The fact that Vietnam is promoting digital transformation also attracts special attention from Taiwanese businesses,” said Mr. Le Tuan, Assistant Head of Office, Head of Investment Department, Office of Economy – Culture Vietnam in Taipei (Taiwan) told a reporter from Investment Newspaper.
According to Mr. Le Tuan, Assistant to the Office Manager, Head of Investment Department, Vietnam Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei (Taiwan), Taiwanese businesses currently recognize and evaluate Vietnam as a The most important “link” in Southeast Asia in the trend of shifting supply chains with a focus on the electronics and telecommunications industry. “Hundreds of industrial parks with attractive incentives are gradually turning the northern provinces of Vietnam into a technology production ecosystem,” Mr. Tuan said. 
Even citing the newly published PwC research, Mr. Tuan said that Vietnam’s importance to Taiwanese businesses has increased from 18% in 2018 to 24% at the end of 2020 and ranked 4th. , after the US, Japan and China.
“PwC Taiwan believes that the fact that the Vietnamese Government is actively focusing on promoting digital transformation will almost be a free ‘preferential’ policy for all foreign businesses to invest in Vietnam. Because, the impact of digital transformation not only helps reduce production costs, but also promotes business efficiency and performance here,” Mr. Tuan said.
Prepare to welcome the “wave” of high technology
About 2 weeks ago, leaders of Bac Giang province had a meeting to discuss with departments and branches to “accelerate” the progress of site clearance in Quang Chau Industrial Park (Viet Yen, Bac Giang). This industrial park has a total area of 426 hectares, but currently only 336 hectares have been cleared, the remaining 90 hectares have not.
According to the direction of Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Bac Giang province Phan The Tuan, the People’s Committee of Viet Yen district must focus heavily on site clearance for the remaining area, ensuring early handover to the investor, even even considers this a “top priority task”.
It’s easy to understand why Bac Giang is so impatient. Provincial leaders want to soon hand over the entire site of this project so that they can “welcome strategic investors”. Detailed information has not been disclosed, but it is likely related to Foxconn Group’s investment expansion project about to be implemented in this industrial park. And most likely, this is the project that has been mentioned for a long time – 270 million USD, producing smart TVs for a famous brand.
Meanwhile, Luxshare Group, after investing in building a factory in Van Trung Industrial Park, is also investing in another project in this industrial park, with an investment capital of 190 million USD. According to Mr. Lee Cheng-Ju, General Director of Luxshare-ICT Van Trung, this new factory specializes in manufacturing wireless headphones (bluetooth), smartwatches and bluetooth speakers.
In addition to factories in Bac Giang, Luxshare is also in the process of expanding factory investment in Nghe An. Meanwhile, Wistron Group invested in a 273 million USD project in Ha Nam, while Pegatron Group invested in 2 500 million USD projects in Hai Phong.
Looking at it from this perspective, it seems that there is a next wave of investment in the high-tech sector pouring into Vietnam. In a report titled “Rising Star: Vietnam’s role in Asia’s changing supply chains”, just released, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said that Vietnam is still an option. attractive to manufacturing operations and those looking to diversify their supply chains in Asia.
According to the EIU, high-tech manufacturers will continue to receive incentives for many years to come and that is an advantage, so that together with other advantages, for example participating in many trade agreements, Vietnam will become into “a very favorable alternative name for a part of Chinese production”.
Source: Investment newspaper
