Hi-tech heads south
The success rate of Taiwanese SMEs that got into Vietnam early and set down roots has been about 70%, as good as in the PRC. Seeing this has encouraged others to follow suit.
"From about two years ago through today, there has been a very obvious new wave of enthusiasm for investment in Vietnam," says Chen Shan-lin. This wave is related to what is happening in China. Local firms in the PRC are growing rapidly and are very competitive, so Taiwanese firms are getting squeezed out there. In addition, there have been other factors making the PRC less attractive: Certain exports from China such as shoes, bicycles, and light bulbs have been hit with anti-dumping duties by the European Union. Also wages in the PRC are rising. In Dongguan, Guangdong Province, for example, the minimum wage was adjusted in 2005 to RMB570, equivalent to about NT$2500, or 30% more than the year before. As a result many Taiwanese firms are turning to Vietnam in order to diversify risk.
Another factor forcing Taiwanese firms to seek an alternative route is that over the past few years, the PRC has been tightening up environmental protection, and the Chinese government is hoping that high-energy-consuming, high-polluting industries will relocate to the country's far west. Of the 128 persons taking part in an investment tour of Vietnam organized by TAITRA in February 2007, 80% came from traditional industrial firms that have long had factories in mainland China.
And now that Vietnam is formally an actor on the international economic stage following its entry into the WTO early this year, big corporations are more confident about the long term, increasing their willingness to invest in Vietnam. Recently several of Taiwan's largest electronics makers, such as the Hon Hai Group, AsusTek, and Compal, have moved into Vietnam.
Hon Hai plans to invest a total of US$5 billion in Vietnam. In early July the group signed a memorandum with Binh Dinh Province to inject US$1 billion into the provincial special economic zone to construct a 700-hectare industrial park, a 300-hectare general services area, and 50 hectares of luxury housing. Binh Dinh has committed itself to a package of preferential tax rates and tax exemptions.
Compal, meanwhile, plans to build a factory in Vinh Phuc Province, with an estimated US$30 million investment for the first phase.
Chang Chih-ming, head of investor relations at Compal, states that the company's three factories employing 20,000 people in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, China, are already at saturation point. In response to requests from foreign customers that the firm diversify risk, it had to look for another production site. It chose Vietnam based mainly on cost considerations.
"Although there has been a lot of growth in the market for notebook computers in recent years, and they are taking up a growing share of the PC market, prices have been falling, so we are all confronted with the problem of reducing production costs," explains Chang. The Vietnamese government has given Compal four initial years tax free, plus a 50% reduction in taxes for years five through nine, which was a significant inducement. The Compal board of directors approved the investment plan in mid-August, and they will soon select a site and break ground.
In the face of this southward flow of Taiwanese high tech, Jeff Hou reminds us that Vietnam lacks infrastructure, and has no heavy industry. Even worse, there is a shortage of people capable of working in high tech, so electronics firms are limited at the present time to doing simple assembly of imported materials and parts pre-made just over the Chinese-Vietnamese border. Taking as one example the processors for microcomputers being made by Intel, semi-finished products are imported into Vietnam only for assembly and packaging, because although Vietnam has an overall surplus of labor, it has a shortage of technical personnel.
"You have to rely on Vietnamese expats returning from overseas for your high tech people," says TECO Corporation vice general manager Tsai Wen-sheng. He puts his hopes in returning overseas Vietnamese in their 30s and 40s, but they will need time to build the requisite skills.