Pou Chen and Far Eastern projects at the starting line

The headquarters of Pou Chen Vietnam Enterprise Ltd. in Bien Hoa city

Tan Tao Investment and Industry Corporation's (ITA) representative said that the footwear research and development centre will be deployed in Tan Tao Industrial Zone (Binh Tan district, Ho Chi Minh City).

“The developer of this project has fulfilled all the procedures to be certified and start in the next months,” he said.

Last year, IDEA Limited Company signed a contract to rent about 20 hectares of land in Tan Tao IZ with an estimated leasing fee of VND500 billion ($20 million) for this centre. The project may be divided into several phases, but in the first phase, IDEA will lease 6.5ha only. The project was received the investment certificate with total investment of $80 million at the end of 2017.

Tsai Pei-Chun, chairwoman and CEO of Pou Chen Group, said the group is present in six Vietnamese localities with over ten factories and 160,000 workers.

These include PouYuen Vietnam Enterprise Ltd. located in Binh Tan district, Ho Chi Minh City, as the group’s first manufacturing arm in Vietnam, which was built and put into operation in 1994. It has more than four plants and 90,000 workers, manufacturing 72 million shoes and producing $1.2 billion of revenue a year.

Tsai Pei-Chun said that she wants to invest and do business for a long time in Vietnam. The group is developing a closed manufacturing chain, including research, design, and manufacturing.

Pou Chen is one of the leading footwear manufacturers of the world for top brands like Nike, Adidas, and Asics. The group has manufactured 325 million shoes in 2017, gained $6.3 billion in revenue, and seized 20 per cent of the global footwear market.

In addition to Pou Chen, Taiwanese apparel giant Far Eastern has also strengthened investment and completed its manufacturing chain in Vietnam.

Binh Duong province has just issued the investment certificate for the apparel factory of Far Eastern Apparel Vietnam Co., Ltd. in VSIP II-A with the total investment of $25 million. This expansion aims to complete the group’s manufacturing chain. Far Eastern has become the biggest foreign-invested apparel enterprise in Binh Duong.

In June 2015, Far Eastern's textile project was granted an investment certificate with the total investment of $274 million in Bau Bang Industrial Park (IP). In the early of 2017, this project was risen investment capital by $485.8 million to $760 million and expanded the area to 120ha.

Up to date, the first phase of Bau Bang IP has filled 1,000ha with over 90 foreign and domestic investors and $1.2 billion of the total registered capital.

The director general of the Binh Duong Department of Planning and Investment said that two more foreign-invested apparel projects received investment certificates earlier this year. Apparel and footwear are one of the major advantages of Vietnam after joining the new-generation free trade agreements.

Since the beginning of the year, the largest newly-established foreign-invested projects are in the apparel and footwear industry. They include the footwear manufacturing project of British Virgin Islands' August Sport Co., Ltd. in Tam Phuoc IP with the total registered capital of $15 million, and the apparel plant of Singapore's Great Kingdom Nhon Trach 2 Co., Ltd. in Nhon Trach IP with the total registered capital of $10 million.