Hitachi secures infrastructure foothold in Vietnam

Established with initial capital of approximately US$500,000, Hitachi Asia (Vietnam) Co Ltd will also help its parent company penetrate deeper into infrastructure, power systems and IT systems firms in Vietnam.

“Vietnam’s economic growth provides plenty of business opportunity for Hitachi to fulfill the market demand for social infrastructure products, services and solutions,” said Yukio Toyoshima, managing director of Hitachi Asia Ltd.

The Tokyo-based company entered into a 37 billion yen (US$376 million) contract with the Management Authority for HCM City’s Urban Railways in June to construct Vietnam’s first urban railway in the southern city.

Hitachi is to deliver sub-systems including 17 train sets with a total of 51 carriages, a signaling system, a telecommunications system including wireless train radio and a power supply system, as well as platform screen doors, an automatic fare collection system and depot facilities.

It is also scheduled to undertake five years’ maintenance work after the start of commercial operations, with details due to be stipulated in a separate agreement.

The new urban railway is scheduled to begin operations in early 2018.

Over recent years, Vietnam has attracted a raft of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Official Development Assistance (ODA) from overseas, with Japan accounting for a sizeable proportion of both FDI and ODA to the country.

Of the total US$13 billion FDI in Vietnam last year, US$5.1 billion was from Japan, representing 40%. Meanwhile, the total committed 2012 Japanese ODA to Vietnam was 286 billion yen (more than US$2.9 billion).

Hitachi is a leading global electronics company with approximately 326,000 employees worldwide. The company’s combined revenue for the fiscal year 2012 (ended March 31, 2013) totaled 9,041 billion yen (US$96.1 billion).