Foreign investors continue to pump investment into Vietnam

By Dat Nguyen December 18, 2022 | 04:00 pm PT

Containers are transported at Cat Lai Terminal in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Nguyen

Many global companies have invested or announced plans to invest billions of dollars in Vietnam this year as they show continued interest in making the country a manufacturing hub.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics earlier this month said it would increase its investment in the country from $18 billion to $20 billion.

Its vice chairman and CEO, Han Jong-hee, said during a meeting with visiting Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc in Seoul: "Samsung has clear goals to implement projects in Vietnam effectively. We want to invest in developing new, young human resources, and promote research in artificial intelligence and big data."

Earlier this year the conglomerate invested an additional $920 million in Samsung Electro-Mechanics Vietnam in the northern province of Thai Nguyen, taking the total to nearly $2.3 billion.

The company is building a research and development center in Hanoi that is scheduled to be completed this month.

Another South Korean giant, LG, said it would invest another $4 billion in Vietnam, wants to partner with the country in various and hopes to make Vietnam a phone camera manufacturing hub in future.

LG has invested $5.3 billion since 1995 in making electronics, household equipment and auto parts, and employs 27,000 workers.

Denmark’s LEGO in November started constructing a $1-billion plant in the southern province of Binh Duong, its sixth globally and second in Asia. The plant is set to begin operations in 2024.

Heineken recently completed its $381-million brewery in the southern province of Ba Ria – Vung Tau, its biggest in Southeast Asia.

It plans to invest another $142 million in the next three years.

Earlier this year Foxconn leased another 50.5 hectares in the northern province of Bac Giang to build a new 30,000-worker plant at a cost of $300 million.

The foreign direct investment that actually came in in the first 11 months rose by 15.1% year-on-year to $19.68 billion.

"Foreign enterprises continue to recover, maintain and expand their activities in Vietnam," director of the Foreign Investment Department, Do Nhat Hoang, said recently.

Japanese firms have been eyeing to scale up in Vietnam. Over 55% of Japanese companies want to expand their business in Vietnam this year and next, a survey by the Japan External Trade Organization found.

Vietnam ranks second in the list of countries in which Japanese firms want to expand behind the U.S., it said.

China’s strict zero-Covid policy almost throughout this year has been causing foreign investors to look for other destinations to set up their manufacturing chains, and Vietnam has risen as a capable candidate, economist Nguyen Tri Hieu said.

It has proved it is capable of producing complex electronics, and its abundant labor resource is another advantage, he told VnExpress International.

Nguyen Quoc Viet, deputy head of the Vietnam institute for Economics and Policy Research, told Thanh Nien newspaper that the growing disbursement by foreign investors in Vietnam amid a decline in Asia shows that investors have confidence in its business environment and stability.