Vietnam needs high-quality human resources to keep giant investors

Bac Giang Provincial People's Committee, on January 18, granted the investment certificate to Foxconn Singapore Pte Ltd to build Fukang Technology Factory in Quang Chau Industrial Park.
Investors receive investment registration certificates and flowers (Photo: SGGP)
Investors receive investment registration certificates and flowers (Photo: SGGP)
Foxconn will manufacture and outsource tablets and laptops at this factory, with a scale of more than 8 million items per year. The project with a total investment of US$270 million is expected to come into operation in the third quarter of 2022. According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, this $270-million project is just the beginning of the following equally impressive plans of Foxconn. By December last year, Foxconn had invested in Vietnam US$1.5 billion. This year, the company plans to add $700 million and recruits 10,000 new workers.

On the same day, the People's Committee of Bac Giang Province also granted investment registration certificates to three other projects. They were the project of Ja Solar PV Vietnam photovoltaic cell technology of Hong Kong’s investor Ja Solar Investment Limited, Risesun New Material Vietnam Factory project, and Kodi New Material Vietnam Factory project of Singapore’s Risesun Investment Pte. Ltd. The total investment capital of these three projects is nearly US$300 million.

In January, the People's Committee of Nghe An Province gave the investment registration certificate to Everwin Precision Technology Vietnam Co., Ltd., with a total investment of $200 million. The project is expected to attract up to 14,000 local workers and 1,000 foreign workers. In Dong Nai Province, in the first days of the year, the province attracted 11 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects. Of which, there were three newly-licensed projects and eight projects increasing investment capital, with a total capital of more than US$226 million, the highest level over the same period in the past five years. Moreover, the LNG fired power project in Quang Tri, invested by a joint venture between Vietnam’s T&T Group and South Korea’s KOSPO Company, KOGAS Company, and Hanwha Company, is under the consideration of the Government and relevant ministries. The project scale is expected to reach US$4.5 billion with a capacity of 4,500 megawatts.

Noticeably, most of the recent investment projects in Vietnam belong to high-tech corporations, namely Foxconn, Heesung Electronics, Goertek Technology, and Luxshare ICT. Lately, the US Capital United Group had a meeting with leaders of Thai Nguyen Province to propose its desire to research and invest in a technology and industrial center project, with a total scale of nearly 900 hectares and an investment of more than $390 million. This center is expected to attract several enterprises in the fields of information technology, high technology, light industry, and logistics.

Although there are many positive signals about FDI attraction, there are also concerns about capital absorption. According to experts, to keep these giant investors staying in Vietnam for a long time, besides infrastructures, such as land, transportation, and energy, there must be high-quality human resources. Although Vietnam has an abundant source of cheap labor and receives benefits from free trade agreements, the quality of human resources is another story. The experience of Singapore is that in front of an opportunity to attract a large corporation, the Government is willing to design its training program to meet the human resource needs of investors.

When a giant investor decides to take roots in Vietnam, other investors will also come after to meet the needs of each other, establishing a sustainable business ecosystem, just as Capital United is seeking ways to go ahead and catch the demand for hi-tech research and development in Vietnam.

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