VietNamNet Bridge – Samsung, a “VIP” foreign investor and major manufacturer whose annual export turnover accounts for 10 percent of Vietnam’s total export turnover, has repeatedly lodged claims to Vietnamese government agencies.

Samsung’s proposal to have a specific cargo terminal at the Noi Bai International Port was approved by state management agencies several days after the request was made.

The quick reaction by the state agencies shows the power the South Korean electronics group has in Vietnam, according to analysts.

Export turnover of the giant alone in smartphones makes up 10 percent of the total export turnover of Vietnam and 90 percent of that of foreign-invested enterprises.

Meanwhile, Noi Bai Airport is one of the main merchandise trade gateways for Samsung, whose factories are located in Bac Ninh and Thai Nguyen provinces.

Local newspapers have in the past reported about the overloading at the cargo terminal at Noi Bai International Airport, with the presence of cargo speciality aircrafts such as Boeing 777F and Boeing 747-400F belonging to Emirates Airlines, Qatar Airways, China Airlines, Eva Air, Cargolux and Korean Air.

More than 50 percent of the exports going through the airport are from SEV, a Samsung-invested enterprise.

SEV, in a dispatch to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), calling for help, wrote that the volume of imports and exports going through Noi Bai, the biggest international airport in the north, has exceeded the designed capacity by 30 percent.

CAAV’s deputy head Vo Huy Cuong commented that SEV’s aspiration is quite “legitimate” and that the big guy really needs a specific cargo terminal for use.

However, Samsung’s power can be seen not only in the north, where it has set up two factories, the biggest in its global supply chain.

Samsung is eyeing HCM City, a commercial hub in the south, as the next destination point for it in Vietnam.

Sources said that the HCM City People’s Committee on September 11 submitted to the city’s People’s Council the suggested investment incentives for the $1 billion Samsung’s electronics factory project at SHTP, the city’s hi-tech park.

Prior to that, in June 2014, HCM City Vice Mayor Le Manh Ha agreed on allowing Samsung to set up its factory on the land plot it chose in SHTP.

The intention by Samsung to set up an electronics factory in HCM City has been welcomed by local authorities, which now focuses on calling for investments in high technology fields, including electronics manufacturing, IC and semiconductor designing and manufacturing.

The investment incentives the city offers to Samsung remain a secret. However, analysts believe that the incentives will be not only remissions in taxes and land leasing fees by bigger preferences in exchange for Samsung’s investment project.

The analysts said Samsung’s story has created a precedent for other high technology groups planning to invest in Vietnam.

Microsoft is one of them. The giant, after taking over Nokia’s smartphone manufacturing division, now can bring Nokia’s production lines used at its factories in China to Vietnam, after the Ministry of Science and Technology postponed a legal document which says that old technologies and equipment must not be brought to Vietnam.

NCDT