Foxconn to invest $250M to make EV, telecom parts in Vietnam

The move confirms Foxconn’s global plans to become a player in the EV industry, after having focussed for years on assembling electronic products for Apple (AAPL.O) and other major brands.

The Taiwanese giant, through its unit Foxconn Singapore, is set to invest approximately $250 million in an industrial park in northern Vietnam, “focusing on the production of electric vehicle components, controllers and other products to meet future development needs,” it said in a statement to Reuters.

The new projects would take its total investment in the southeast Asian manufacturing hub to about $3 billion in nearly two decades since it built its first plant there, confirming its wider plans to expand outside of China amid continuous tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Local authorities confirmed they had authorized Foxconn’s new investment. The largest chunk of the new funding, about $200 million, will go into a factory to produce EV chargers and components, which is scheduled to start production from January 2025 with a workforce of 1,200 people, authorities said.

The remaining $46 million is for a plant to produce electronics and telecommunication components, with production set to begin in October 2024.

Both facilities will in the province’s Song Khoai Industrial Park, 138 km (86 miles) east of Hanoi.

“With roots that go back more than 15 years, Foxconn’s base in Vietnam is one of the key locations in our global footprint,” the company said in the statement to Reuters.

Foxconn also plans to set up a new factory in Vietnam’s central province of Nghe An with an initial investment of $100 million, the provincial local authority said last month.