Will made-in-Vietnam cars roll on SE Asia streets?

In late March 2017, Truong Hai Automobile kicked off the $500 million project on manufacturing and assembling Mazda in Chu Lai IZ with the capacity of 100,000 products a year. 

The first phase of the project, to have the capacity of 50,000 products, is scheduled to be completed by April 2018. This will be a modern automobile factory with automatic production lines, robots and advanced technologies.

The Mazda factory is just one of the new investment projects of Truong Hai. In 2017, the corporation invested VND30.47 trillion to build 8 car assembling, 19 car part manufacturing factories and one R&D center. 

It plans to manufacture sedans, trucks and passenger cars with the localization ratio of 40 percent at minimum for domestic sale and export.

Hyundai Thanh Cong in early April 2017 decided to set up a 120,000 product per annum assembling plant in Ninh Binh. From 2018, when the plant becomes operational, 90 percent of Hyundai cars to be sold in Vietnam will come from the plant. Robots will be used in most of the production phases.

Hyundai Thanh Cong is building a modern automobile manufacturing IZ with huge capital of VND20 trillion which will comprise avsedan, passenger car and bus assembling center, an R&D center and an area for supporting industries.

Meanwhile, in early September 2017, Vingroup, known in Vietnam as a real estate giant with powerful financial capability, started the construction of VinFast, an automobile manufacture complex in Hai Phong City. 

The complex, to manufacture automobiles and electric motorbikes, has the designed capacity of 500,000 products by 2025 and huge investment capital of $3.5 billion.

Vietnamese put high hopes in VinFast because its holding company – Vingroup – is a giant which has been successful in all business fields it has invested in. 

VinFast has promised that a 5-seat sedan, a 7-seat SUV and electric motorbikes will be available in the first phase. 

While foreign invested automobile manufacturers are scaling down their production and focusing on importing cars for domestic consumption, three Vietnamese enterprises are doing the opposite  – pouring more money to develop production bases in Vietnam.

Tran Ba Duong of Truong Hai Automobile affirmed that the locally made content ratio of Truong Hai’s cars will be 40 percent. 

Le Ngoc Duc of Hyundai Thanh Cong said the localization ratio will be raised from 19 percent to over 40 percent. Meanwhile, vice president of Vingroup Nguyen Viet Quang said the ratio of Vinfast will be 60 percent.