Inventive Legal LLC - Investment Consulting Firm

South Korean companies are continuing to spend in Vietnam, making it their biggest manufacturing hub in the world.

Shin Dong-bin, the head of Lotte Group, went to Vietnam on September 22 to attend the opening of Lotte Mall West Lake Hanoi. This mall, which cost $643 million to build, is Lotte's biggest project in Vietnam that is now open to the public.

Since 1996, when the group first moved into Vietnam, it has opened shopping centers and stores. It has also moved into other areas, such as hotels and movie theaters. Shin told Dau Tu (Vietnam Investment Review) that Lotte now has 19 companies in Vietnam that are part of its group.

Lotte is said to have put around $5 billion into Vietnam, and that number is likely to keep going up. In September of last year, Shin went to the start of work on the $900 million Lotte Eco Smart City Thu Thiem. At the time, he said that this project was the first of many more Lotte investments in the country to come.

Also on September 22, SK Group, another South Korean company with a lot of money, got a certificate that lets it spend more money in Vietnam. Through its partner SKC, the group will invest $500 million in a high-tech plant in Hai Phong city that makes biodegradable materials. This plant will be built starting later this year and finishing in the third quarter of 2024.

CEO of SKC Park Won-cheol said that the company has spent about $3 billion in the country over the past five years. He also said that he will try to get more Korean companies to invest in Vietnam and Hai Phong in particular.

A few days earlier, Hana Micron, a big company in South Korea's semiconductor industry, opened its second plant in the Van Trung Industrial Park in the province of Bac Giang. With this project, Hana Micron has now spent a total of $600 million on projects in Vietnam.

The first factory started making integrated circuit (IC) boards last year. These boards are used in cell phones and other smart electronic products.

Hana Micron Chairman Choi Chang-ho said at the opening of the second factory that the company plans to spend more than $1 billion by 2025. When that happens, the plant is expected to make $800 million and add more than 4,000 jobs.

Among foreign investors in Vietnam during the first eight months of 2023, Singapore, China, and Japan were ahead of South Korea. But in terms of total cash, it is still the largest investor.

The Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade says that this Northeast Asian country was still at the top of the list in terms of new capital (27.6%) and spending on putting money into or buying shares of Vietnamese companies (28.7%) over the last eight months.

During South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeo's State visit to Vietnam at the end of June, a business conference was held between Vietnam and South Korea. The director of the agency, Do Nhat Hoang, said that he had a list of tens of pending projects, some worth millions of dollars and some up to $1 billion.

He pointed out that major multinationals are still looking at Vietnam and viewing it as their No. 1 destination to invest.