Roh Tae-Moon, head of Samsung's key smartphone division, said this at a Friday meeting with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

On its homepage, Samsung has said that it is preparing trial production for semiconductor chip grid products and planning to open a research and development (R&D) center in Hanoi later this year or early next year.

Samsung's plant in Thai Nguyen Province, northern Vietnam.

The company said the R&D center was about 85% complete.

"Semiconductors would mark a third business for Samsung in Vietnam, where the company makes home appliances and half of its smartphones," according to Nikkei Asia.

In the first half of 2022, Samsung Vietnam’s export revenue was $34.3 billion, up 18% from the same period last year.

In February, Samsung announced an additional $920 million investment into its factory in Vietnam.

Before Samsung, Vietnam had Intel Products Vietnam (IPV), the largest assembly and testing plant in Intel's network. During the global chip crisis, IPV not only maintained stable operations, but also made a number of innovative contributions to help it fill the shortage in semiconductors. One of the key initiatives was to improve the substrate treatment process at the plant.

"Vietnam has the ability to establish the necessary infrastructure and policies needed to support cutting-edge manufacturing operations in the chip sector," Steve Long, general manager of Intel’s Asia-Pacific and Japan region, had said during an interview with VnExpress in May.

He said the stable socio-political environment, increasingly liberalized trade and investment policies, and a young and talented workforce were the reasons for foreign investors, especially large tech corporations, finding Vietnam an attractive destination.

Vietnam is home to 60 percent of Samsung’s total smartphone production.

Samsung, Vietnam’s biggest foreign direct investor, first invested $1.3 billion in its electro-mechanics unit in 2013. The unit produces main boards and other electronics components.

As of last year, the world's largest memory chip maker had invested $18 billion in Vietnam.

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Source: VnExpress