Samsung Electronics to build appliance complex in Vietnam

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. will build a US$560 million industrial complex in Vietnam to produce consumer electronics (CE) to meet growing global demand for home appliances, the company said Thursday.

   The complex will be built in the southern Vietnamese city of Ho Chi Minh on a plot of 700,000 square meters. The scheduled completion date of the plant was not specified.

   Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, delivered a formal written approval for the plant construction from his government to Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics.

   The Vietnamese party leader, on a four-day visit to South Korea starting Wednesday, and Lee discussed ways of future investment cooperation during their meeting, the company said.

   The Vietnamese government is said to have exempted the appliance plant from paying corporate tax for six years, after which it will impose a 5 percent tax.

   Samsung Electronics posted 13 trillion won in sales in the consumer electronics division in the second quarter of this year, up 15 percent from the previous quarter, with the division's operating profit up fourfold to 770 billion won ($724.2 million).

   The South Korean tech giant expanded its share of the global TV market to 30.7 percent in the first half of the year, up 3.9 percent from 26.8 percent a year ago, according to data by market researcher Display Search.

   Samsung Electronics operates two smartphone plants in the Southeast Asian country. Its affiliate, Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., is building a $1.23 billion plant for smartphone parts. (Yonhap)