Vietnam Awards Foxconn Unit Licence to Manufacture Tablets, Laptops

The Vietnamese government has announced it has given license to a unit of Foxconn Technology to build a $270 million plant in the northern province of Bac Giang for manufacturing laptops and tablets, Reuters is reporting.

In a statement on its website, the government said that Foxconn has so far invested $1.5 billion in Vietnam and plans to raise its investment by $700 million and recruit 10,000 more local workers this year.

The plant, which will be developed by Fukang Technology, will have the capacity to produce eight million units per year.

Foxconn is moving some iPad and MacBook assembly to Vietnam from China at the request of Apple Inc, a person with knowledge of the plan said in November, as the U.S. firm diversifies production to minimise the impact of Sino-U.S. trade tensions.

A separate report last week claimed that Foxconn was looking into investing $1.3 billion in Vietnamese’s Thanh Hoa province.