Phuc spoke as he received Koh Dong Jin, President and CEO of IT and Mobile Communications and Executive Director of Samsung Electronics in Ha Noi on Friday.

“Viet Nam is proud of the presence of Samsung and thanks to Samsung, Viet Nam has become the leading mobile phone manufacturing center in the world,” he said.

He affirmed that the Viet Namese Government applauded South Korean investors, especially Samsung Group, and pledged to create more favourable conditions for foreign investors in the country.

The PM sent his congratulations to Samsung Group for celebrating the 10^th anniversary of Samsung Electronics Viet Nam (SEV).

Starting with an investment of US$670 million for SEV, Samsung is currently the largest foreign investor in Viet Nam with total investment jumping almost 26 times to over $17.3 billion. Up to now, the full presence of Samsung in Viet Nam includes eight factories and a research and development centre, in which SEV (Bac Ninh) and SEVT (Thai Nguyen) are two most largest mobile factories of Samsung in the world.

SEHC (HCM City) is the largest household electronics factory in Southeast Asia and SVMC is the largest Samsung research and development centre in the region. In the Samsung development strategy, Viet Nam is a global base of both production and research and development activities.

For the first time, Viet Nam’s export turnover exceeded $200 billion, and Samsung Viet Nam’s export turnover also made sharp breakthrough with over $54 billion, contributing more than 25 per cent to Viet Nam’s export turnover. SEV has created jobs for some 160,000 local workers.

Koh Dong Jin sent his thanks to the Vietnamese Government for facilitating their investment and production in Viet Nam.

He said Samsung has always worked to bring the most advanced and modern applications to their production in Viet Nam and here the company will work on the development of technologies such as 4G, 5G, Internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence.

He agreed with the PM’s proposal to build a smart city in Bac Ninh and other localities in the country.

On the same day, SEV celebrated the 10^th anniversary of establishment in Viet Nam.

Speaking at the event, Deputy PM cum Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh said Samsung’s success in Viet Nam has also been a success of the country’s reform policy and constantly improving quality in the investment environment.

Chairman of the Viet Nam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises Association (VAFIEs) Nguyen Mai told Viet Nam News that FDI firms have made great contributions to Viet Nam’s export turnover by exporting valuable processed and manufactured products.

Bac Ninh Province, for example, has shifted from an agricultural to an industrial province with industry and service value now accounting for 92 per cent of economic production. FDI capital in the province registered by the end of 2017 had reached $15.5 billion thanks to the investment of Samsung.