Far Eastern Group, one of Taiwan’s biggest conglomerates, has raised its total investment in Vietnam to US$1.37 billion, all for its yarn subsidiary based in the south. Globally, the group operates in different sectors ranging from petrochemicals, cement, and retail to hospitality, finance, and communications.
As yarn is one of its core businesses, its Vietnam yarn arm – Polytex Far Eastern – has been expanding production since the Taiwanese giant started investing in the Southeast Asian country in 2015.
In June of that year Far Eastern received an investment certificate to build a US$274 million polyester and cotton yarn factory in Bau Bang Industrial Park in Binh Duong province, which is next to Ho Chi Minh City – Vietnam’s southern economic powerhouse.
Bau Bang Industrial Park is about 50 kilometres north of the mega city, and the factory was designed with a full capacity of 96 million square metres of cotton yarn and 127 million square metres of polyester yarn.
A year later the conglomerate announced its total investment in Polytex Far Eastern Vietnam had reached US$760 million, with the increased capital used to build its second factory, also in Bau Bang. The third and latest wave of its investments is worth US$610 million, taking its total capital in Vietnam to US$1.37 billion.
Under Binh Duong’s development plans, factories in the Bau Bang Industrial Park must see to it that their wastewater is carefully managed and treated, and this applies to facilities making yarn and dyeing fabrics for the textile sector.
Taiwanese companies in Vietnam are largely involved in garments and textile, footwear and support industries. Typically, they prefer the Southern Key Economic Region, comprising of Ho Chi Minh City and the provinces of Binh Duong and Dong Nai, thanks to its advantages pertaining to market access and support industries.
On May 21 2021 Binh Duong’s provincial administration handed over the certificate for Far Eastern Group’s latest investment of US$610 million. It granted another certificate to leading Taiwanese papermaker Cheng Loong Corporation for its new investment of US$100 million into its paper and paperboard mill in the province’s Protrade International Tech Park for a higher production capacity. This raised Cheng Loong’s total investment in Vietnam to US$1.1 billion.
A total of US$1.25 billion worth of foreign direct investment was registered in Binh Duong in the first five months of the year alone, local data show.