The construction of a US$12 million electronics factory started yesterday in northern Bac Ninh Province’s Viet Nam – Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP).

Financed by Japan’s Foster Electric Company, the 3.4ha factory is expected to be completed early next year and create more than 6,000 jobs.

The factory, Foster’s fourth in Viet Nam, will make five million headphones, its key product, each month, said Miyata Yukio, the company’s president.

Foster has two factories in southern Binh Duong Province and one in the central city of Da Nang, which together produce 10 million headphones a month, Yukio added.

Bui Vinh Kien, the Bac Ninh’s People’s Committee vice chairman, asked local authorities to create the most favourable conditions for investors.

At the ground-breaking ceremony yesterday, Kien spoke highly of the contribution made by industrial zones (IZs) to provincial economic development.

As of last year, the provincial IZs Management Board granted investment licences to 385 projects with a total registered capital of US$2.98 billion. Of those, 166 were foreign-invested and worth $2.14 billion – approximately 52 per cent of the electronics sector’s total FDI.

Of these, 191 projects are operational, posting an industrial output of VND20 billion and an export turnover of more than $1 billion in 2009.

“The electronics sector makes up 75 per cent of the industrial value and 66 per cent of the export turnover, attracting more projects with advanced technologies but creating less environmental pollution, while meeting standards for export to regional and international markets,” Kien said.