Ho Chi Minh City welcomes Samsung project with over $46mn in infrastructure upgrades
The southern megacity is expected to spend as much as VND1 trillion ($46.6 million) to develop infrastructure to serve the Samsung project,The Saigon Times Online quoted chairman Le Hoang Quan as saying at a meeting with Han Myoung Sup, executive presidents of Samsung Electronics, and other high-ranking officials from the company.
Han has just been appointed general director of Samsung Vietnam and assigned to oversee all of Samsung’s investments in the Southeast Asian country, including the $1.4 billion plant at the Saigon Hi-Tech Park, Ho Chi Minh City’s tech hub, according to the newswire.
The city money is being spent on site clearance and bridge and road construction so that Samsung can soon begin implementing its project, according to the city’s chairman.
Quan added that the megaproject is expected to help boost the city’s socio-economic development.
The $1.4 billion Samsung Consumer Electronics Complex (SCEC), which will include a manufacturing facility and a research and development center, obtained an investment license from the municipal administration in October last year.
The SCEC is the key and largest scale project among Samsung’s similar investments in Southeast Asia, Han said at the meeting.
Samsung will first make the latest generations of smart TVs at the Ho Chi Minh City plant, and then move on to other deluxe consumer electronic products, according to the South Korean executive.
The South Korean electronics behemoth hopes to put the complex into operation at this time next year, he added.
But chairman Quan expressed his hope that Samsung will be able to unveil its first curved TV produced at the SCEC by September 2 to mark the 70th National Day of Vietnam, according to The Saigon Times Online.
Le Manh Ha, deputy chairman of Ho Chi Minh City, ordered the Saigon Hi-Tech Park on Tuesday to develop its infrastructure and “create the most convenient conditions” for Samsung to commission its plant in 2016, according to the Radio Voice of Vietnam.
“All of the projects at the park, especially that of Samsung, have a long-term impact on the development of the city’s hi-tech sector,” Ha underlined.
The hi-tech hub attracted ten projects worth nearly $1.9 billion in 2014, according to the Radio Voice of Vietnam. The park generated more than $3 billion from exports, accounting for more than 90 percent of the city’s hi-tech export revenue.
Samsung is running a number of multibillion-dollar projects across Vietnam, with total investment topping almost $13 billion.
In 2014 alone, the company was committed to pumping an additional $5.4 billion into the Southeast Asian country through its $3 billion second production complex in the northern province of Thai Nguyen, a $1 billion screen-making plant in the northern province of Bac Ninh, and a $1.4 billion consumer electronics factory in Ho Chi Minh City.
The company also signed a memorandum of understanding last month to develop a $2.5 billion thermal power plant in the north-central province of Ha Tinh.
Samsung’s existing projects in Vietnam include a $2.5 billion manufacture complex in Bac Ninh, a $2 billion complex in Thai Nguyen, and a $36.5 million screen-making factory in Ho Chi Minh City.
Samsung’s total investment in Vietnam could rise to $20 billion by 2017, according to the Vietnamese investment ministry.
