Samsung has been the name mentioned in all discussions about the foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam since the day it set up the world's biggest mobile phone factory in Vietnam's Thai Nguyen province--which provides 60 percent of Samsung brand mobile phones to the global market.

Vietnam's efforts to attract FDI over the last 25 years have not been highly appreciated by experts, who pointed out that most of the foreign investors coming to Vietnam so far develop small and medium projects. About 50 percent of foreign investors now are from the countries with the same development level like Vietnam (the proportion was 35 percent in the past).

Meanwhile, Vietnam is the destination where foreign investors bring backward technologies to, and the ideal place where foreign investors conduct the transfer pricing, and tax evasion. Vietnam now dreams of getting big fish when attracting FDI. Especially, it hopes to lure the top 500 global conglomerates. After Vietnam successfully persuaded Intel to set up its factory here, it had to wait a long time before welcoming the other big investor - Samsung.

The high technology projects the South Korean group develops in Vietnam has raised a high hope that Vietnam can attract more big foreign investors in the future. The investments of Samsung have been warmly welcomed in Vietnam. The government of Vietnam has many times shown its goodwill to the South Korean investor--when offering the highest possible investment incentives for the two its operational projects capitalized at $4.5 billion in total.

The government office has released a document informing the Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai's opinion about the plan on cooperating with Samsung Group in different business fields. The Ministry of Transport has been requested to consider the possibility of allowing Samsung to join the project on developing the Long Thanh International Airport in Dong Nai province, which would help ease the overloading of Tan Son Nhat airport in HCM City. Once the airport becomes operational, it would serve some 100 million passengers every year. The huge project needs the investment capital of $6 billion in the first phase of development.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has been told to introduce some national key projects to Samsung to call for its investments.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) will have working sessions with Samsung about the Vung Ang 3 thermopower project, and the shipbuilder SBIC on the investment cooperation or the shipbuilding industry restructure. Prior to that, in the MOU signed between MPI and Samsung C&T, a subsidiary of Samsung, the South Korean investor committed to join the projects in airport, shipbuilding and telecommunication development.

The Deputy Prime Minister has also requested the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), a powerful company specializing in making investments with the state's money, to work out with Samsung about the possible investment cooperation plans. When asked about the cooperation between SCIC and Samsung, Samsung and its subsidiaries may buy stakes of the enterprises from which SCIC plans to withdraw capital. Meanwhile, he denied the possibility of SCIC buying Samsung's stakes.

By Kim Chi, english.vietnamnet.vn/

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