Forval opens door to more IP investment

Dai An  Industrial Park photo source: daianvietnam.com

The Tokyo-headquartered firm has just decided enter into ventures with the parks after a painstaking study of 200 industrial parks in Vietnam.

Forval Corporation chairman Hideo Okubo said the firm would support Dai An Industrial Park Joint Stock Company and Tin Nghia Company – the owner of Nhon Trach 3 Industrial Park to develop sites reserved for Japan’s small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and introduce one-stop services to support investors.

“To attract investments from Japan’s SMEs, industrial parks must  have staff who speak Japanese, must offer available workshops and have one-stop shops to handle investment procedures,” he said.

“We are also thinking about investing in these industrial parks. We are now discussing with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for funding our investment in Dai An and Nhon Trach 3,” added Okubo.

Dai An  Industrial Park is located in northern Hai Duong province, while Nhon Trach 3 Industrial Park is located in Dong Nai province. Both are good locations for developing supporting industries. “We learnt that the Vietnamese government wants to call for investment from foreign SMEs, especially from Japan, to develop supporting industries, and there is also a growing trend of overseas investments at Japan’s SMEs at this time. So we want to expand this business in Vietnam,” Okubo said.

Since Forval Corporation introduced Dai An and Nhon Trach 3 to SMEs in Japan, 30 Japanese SMEs have expressed interest in building factories in these parks. More than 10 of which registered to invest in.

“In the past, Japanese SMEs rarely expanded investment overseas, but due to the growing labour shortage in Japan, more SMEs want to build factories outside Japan. Vietnam is among their good destinations to make investments,” said Okubo.

In fact, Vietnamese government has been trying to call for investment from Japan’s SMEs for long time, but the result is not so positive even though Japan’s multinational companies like Canon, Honda, Toyota, Panasonic and Mitsubishi have already been present in this country.