Struggling Nokia pledges to build Vietnam plant

June 25, 2012 | 12:58

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Nokia is to keep building its manufacturing factory in Vietnam on schedule despite taking a hammering in the global market place.

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Ivan Hurt, general director of Nokia manufacturing project in Vietnam, said the Finnish firm was still pushing the construction of this project ahead. Since launching the construction of the project in April, Nokia has disbursed $15 million out of total $302 million, said Hurt.

He said other steps would be conducted to put the factory into operation by 2013. On June 14, 2012, Nokia announced a plan to rescale the company by making additional reductions in devices and services. The measures include closure of its facilities in Ulm in Germany, Burnaby in Canada and Salo in Finland. As a result of the planned changes announced, Nokia plans to reduce up to 10,000 positions globally by the end of 2013.

“These planned reductions are a difficult consequence of the intended actions we believe we must take to ensure Nokia’s long-term competitive strength,” Stephen Elop, Nokia president. In addition to that, Nokia announced plans to divest from Vertu, its luxury mobile phones business to EQT VI, a European private equity firm.

Nokia’s current situation then raised question on the feasibility of its project in Vietnam.

Nokia’s project, located in Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park in northern Bac Ninh province – about 18 kilometres north of Hanoi – is Nokia’s 11th factory in the world and is a part of Nokia’s plan to focus on Asia. The factory has production capacity of 45 million units per quarter. Most of the products will be exported to overseas markets.

By Nhu Ngoc

vir.com.vn

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