Fashion
South Korean conglomerate Samsung is committed to a long-term presence in Vietnam as a major base for its global operations. Won Hwan Shim, vice president of Samsung Electronics, reiterated the group’s commitment to Vietnam in a Friday meeting with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Shim said that Samsung’s plants in Vietnam had the most impressive growth among the company’s global facilities.
Samsung, the world’s biggest smartphone maker, has been investing more and more in Vietnam, especially in its research and development centers, Shim said, adding that the group is transferring technologies to these local facilities.
The company invested $600 million to finish the Samsung Ho Chi Minh City Research & Development Center in November 2017, its second such facility in the country after Hanoi, he noted.
PM Phuc said that he expects more impressive growth numbers from Samsung this year, and also asked that Samsung continues to make Vietnam its most important global base, further expanding its operations here.
Samsung has invested $17.3 billion in eight factories and two research and development centers in Vietnam, creating jobs for more than 160,000 locals.
It is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam. Last year, Samsung estimated its exports from Vietnam was $60 billion, up 12 percent from 2017, accounting for a quarter of Vietnam’s total exports.
Samsung last month closed one of two phone factories in China to focus more on low-cost countries like Vietnam and India for production as reported.
The group’s two phone factories in Vietnam together make 240 million units a year. The factories, located in the northern provinces of Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen, produce half of all the cellphones that Samsung supplies to the global market.
