Samsung Vietnam gets tax breaks for giant plant

 
Workers at a Samsung plant in Vietnam. The Korean firm has received incentives for its hi-tech complex in the northern province of Thai Nguyen. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

Work began three months ago on a hi-tech complex in the Yen Binh Industrial Zone in Pho Yen District, and in a statement on its website, the province administration said Samsung would start receiving the incentives after it satisfies investment requirements.

A US$2 billion cell-phone and tablet-computer factory does not have to pay tax for the first four years of operation and will get a 50 percent break for the next 12 years.

The other three – work on which has yet to start – including a $1.2 billion unit in the complex that will assemble microprocessors and integrated circuits, will have their infrastructure rentals subsidized by 50 percent.

A tax official said on the website that the complex would be paying tax of at least VND700 billion ($33.4 million) from its fifth year of operation.

The handset plant is scheduled to begin production later this year with an annual capacity of 100 million phones and other electronic devices.

Samsung opened its first plant in Vietnam – and second largest handset factory worldwide after its Kumi plant in South Korea – in Bac Ninh in 2009 with an initial investment of $670 million.

It expanded the plant last year, with the total investment rising to $1.5 billion.

That plant too received several incentives, including tax breaks.

Samsung's exports from Vietnam last year were worth $12.7 billion, more than 11 percent of the country's total exports.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung was quoted by news website VnExpress as saying at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Thai Nguyen complex last March that the company's exports are expected to top $20 billion each year.