Intel Vietnam said it would officially inaugurate the first phaseof its largest global micro-chip plant, with an investment capital of 1billion USD, at the Ho Chi Minh City Hi-tech Zone later this month.
The first batch of Intel chips worth 120 million USD is expected to be exported later this year.
Also in October, Bosch Vietnam will have its software research andproduction centre in Ho Chi Minh City up and running, the company’ssecond major production facility in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to Bosch Vietnam ’s Managing Director Vo Quang Hue, bythe end of this year, the company will have begun the first phase of a24 million USD auto-parts factory in Long Thanh district, Dong Nai. Italso plans to inject an additional 30 million VND to finish the factoryby 2015.
Vietnam is now the only SoutheastAsian market where Bosch are involved in all three stages, research,production and sales.
Despite operating fourprojects in HCM City , with a combined investment of nearly 500million USD, Nidec President Nagomori Shigennobu still says his companywill continue with its investment, research and development activitiesin the HCM City Hi-tech Zone, as well as call on its Japanese partnersto invest more in this field.
According to theGeneral Secretary of the Vietnam Electronics Businesses Association TranQuang Hung, the presence of foreign groups in the hi-tech industrycreates opportunities for Vietnamese workers to learn and improve theirskills and gradually expand the number of subsidiaries producingcomponents for overseas companies in the next 5-10 years.
Many small and medium sized Vietnamese companies investing in thehi-tech industry could also become partners of foreign groups tomanufacture spare parts and help to improve the country’scompetitiveness in this sector, he added.
Vietnamhas several advantages over other regional countries, such as cheaplabour costs and a convenient location for transporting goods to othermarkets in the Asia-Pacific region, said Hue, adding that in order todevelop its hi-tech industry, the country should define itself as adestination for large manufacturers./.