Samsung expands investment in Vietnam's HCM City high-tech park

Samsung Group will build a factory here to make electronic household utensils at the Saigon High-tech Park (SHTP) with a total investment of 1.4 billion U.S. dollars, local online Thanh nien (Youth) newspaper reported Friday.

The project will be given preferential treatments from the city 's people committee during its construction. Covering an area of 70 hectares, the factory is expected to officially operate in early 2016, employing around 4,000-5,000 laborers. The project's operating time is designed to last for 50 years. Samsung has committed to use domestically-originated materials rate of between 30-40 percent after three years of operations.

The Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP) is a venue for high technology enterprises located 15km from downtown HCM City. The park covers an area of 326 ha (95 percent utilized) and is currently being expanded to 913 ha. High-tech investors are given preferential treatments here with land leases and taxation, as well as support for customs services.

Several world leading high-tech companies have invested in SHTP, including Japanese Nidec (hard disk drive motors), U.S. Intel ( having 1 billion U.S. dollars registered investment to build the largest chip assembly & test plant in the world), French Air Liquide (world leader in gases for industry, health and the environment), Danish Sonion (leader in miniature and hearing components), U.S. Jabil (a major electronic supplier) and Italo- American Datalogic (global leader in bar codes readers).

The park was aimed at promoting HCM City and Vietnam as a hi- tech investor friendly destination. The new phase is focusing on education, bio-technology, start-up incubators, training centers, software, R&D, telecom.

SHTP is one of two hi-tech parks in Vietnam, the other being Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park situated in the western outskirts of capital Hanoi.