LG Display Co Ltd has got an investment certificate to build a US$1.5-billion OLED display factory in Trang Due Industrial Park (IP) in Haiphong City, according to the Haiphong Economic Zones Authority.

The authority confirmed the presentation of the investment certificate to the South Korean tech firm when reached by the Daily last week.

It said LG Display, a unit of LG Group, will produce hi-tech displays at the factory at the IP, where LG Electronics already has a US$1.5-billion complex in operation.

LG Display, which manufactures thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, OLEDs and flexible displays, plans to start work on the project covering more than 40 hectares next month and put it into operation next year.

The forthcoming facility is expected to create jobs for 6,000 local workers.

Experts said the project would give a much-needed boost to supporting industries for the electronics and communications sectors, increase the ratio of local content in the products made at the LG Electronics complex, and diversify services for industrial manufacturing in the northern city.

In March last year, LG Electronics commissioned the complex that makes TVs, cell phones, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and digital devices for autos for domestic consumption and export. Costing US$1.5 billion and covering 80 hectares, the project is the electronics giant’s biggest in the region.

In April, Cheol Dong Jeong, vice president and chief production officer of LG Display, said at a meeting with leaders of Haiphong that the project is vital as it is the first OLED display facility of LG Display in the world. He hoped the city government would support the company to make the project a success.

According to Saigon-Haiphong Industrial Park Joint Stock Co (SHP), the investor of Trang Due IP, the LG Electronics complex has helped attract LG’s suppliers from South Korea and elsewhere in the world to come to Trang Due IP to set up shop.

As of early April, some 27 suppliers of LG had registered a total of US$731 million for their projects in the IP.

Samsung, another electronics giant of South Korea, has two complexes in Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen provinces.

Samsung Display will pour US$4 billion into a project in Bac Ninh to produce high-resolution screens for the two Samsung complexes in the northern provinces and for export.