Japanese firms expand investment in Vietnam
Vietnam’s improving investment climate has made the country become an alluring destination for Japanese investors who commit to furthering investment in the Southeast Asian nation in the future.
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Some 3,600 Japanese investment projects landed in Vietnam by the end of September with total registered capital of US$46.1 billion. Japanese investment alone accounted for 14% and 14.8% of the country’s total projects and registered capital, respectively.
Giant investors include Honda, Toyota, Canon, Mitsubishi, Yamaha, Sumitomo and AEON. The groups have enjoyed robust operation and business results and they are increasingly expanding investment in Vietnam.
Honda Group is an example, from one factory in Vinh Phuc province, the group has set up three motorbike manufacturing factories and one automobile manufacturing plant. Meanwhile, Canon Group established two new plants at Que Vo and Tien Son industrial parks in Bac Ninh province following the first plant in Thang Long industrial zone.
Despite attracting attention from Japanese enterprises, Vietnamese economic experts noted that the undeveloped support industry remains a bottleneck in the country’s business environment.
They said that Canon Vietnam has to pay US$40 million to import spare parts for production, resulting in time and money consuming of the enterprise.
Along with promoting investment in support industry, the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Investment will join hands with Japan to carry out the industrialisation plan until 2020 with vision towards 2030 in the framework of the Vietnam-Japan Joint Initiative.
Accordingly, they will work to put forth cooperation in six branches: electronics, agricultural machineries, agro-fishery processing, ship building, environment and energy saving, and automobile spare parts.
