Popular Chinese LED maker is ready to shine light on Vietnam

Hua Bo Tech (Zhuhai)’s booth is displaying its energy-saving technologies
Photo: Thanh Tung

At last week’s fifth international exhibition on energy efficiency in Hanoi (ENTECH Hanoi 2013), the booth of Hua Bo Tech (Zhuhai) Industry Co., Ltd., based in China’s Zhuhai city, stood out among 200 booths showcasing their energy-saving technologies.

Hua Bo Tech (Zhuhai), whose capital comes from Taiwan, showed off its samples of more than 200 LED products, which will be directly manufactured in Vietnam from this year’s third quarter with state-of-the-art technologies.

LED is a semiconductor light source that is frequently used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting. It can save 30-90 per cent of power as compared to traditional lamps. “Hua Bo Tech (Zhuhai) will invest five million dollars to build a factory focusing on manufacturing products ranging from precise plastic components, vacuum packaging blisters, mold/tooling design and fabrication, label and sticker processing, assembly for OEM electronic products, solar-powered and energy-saving lighting fixtures to LED lamps in Hanoi’s Thach That-Quoc Oai Industrial Park’s Lot 18.

At present, the company has decided to lease a production workshop at the lot. This will be our first factory in Vietnam,” said company sales director James Chen. “We are asking investment permission from the Ministry of Planning and Investment in Vietnam. It is expected that we will receive the investment certificate in June or July and will begin production in September 2013,” Chen told VIR.

“One of the reasons why we come to Vietnam for investment is that many of our big customers like Panasonic, Samsung, Honda, Toyota, Cannon, Sony and Brother Industries have been in Vietnam for years. And we don’t want to lose these customers,” Chen said. “Also, the labour cost in China keeps increasing, while Vietnam boasts a cheap labour cost.”

This 20,000-square-metre factory will employ about 600 local workers and it will be expanded to 50,000sqm by late 2014.

The factory will use imported materials to make over 200 types of LED lamps which will be both locally-consumed and exported to Europe, Asia and North America. Some 20,000 of the 50,000sqm will be used for production, and the remaining area will be used for roads, landscaping and showrooms. This project comes to Vietnam as the government is making efforts to promote a low-carbon economy, in which development of LED technology is prioritised, with the big participation of foreign investors.

“LED technology is becoming an important development orientation of Vietnam’s government. The far-reaching application of this technology will remarkably contribute to the government’s successful implementation of its national targeted programme on energy efficiency,” Chen said. He said in order to carve a firm niche for its products, this company would focus on enhancing product quality and after-sale services for customers, as it was doing in China. “Besides, all workers will receive training courses with each lasting three or six months, and they will become skilled ones,” he said.

Hua Bo Tech (Zhuhai) - www.famei.com.cn, is a member of China-based HUA BO Group, which is a manufacturer of industrial equipment and machines. In China, Hua Bo Tech (Zhuhai) has two factories with one in Zhuhai and one in Zhong shan city. It is a large-scale plastics and electronics company established under the modern enterprise system. 

The land area of Hua Bo Tech (Zhuhai) covers 68,000sqm, and the total building area is 95,000sqm. Its main business scopes are precise plastic components, vacuum packaging blisters, mold/tooling design and fabrication, label and sticker processing, assembly for OEM electronic products, solar-powered and energy-saving lighting fixtures.

Its clean-room workshop covers over 2,000 square metres. It also has advanced production facilities.