Industrial giant Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) has received the green light to build the largest steel mill in Vietnam, a US$7.8 billion investment, Vietnamese media reported yesterday.
Formosa will take a 95 percent stake in the project expected to be completed by 2011, with Taiwan’s Sun Steel Co taking the remainder, after they were granted a licence last week, the Vietnam Investment Review said.
The mega-project accounts for more than half of Vietnam’s foreign investment so far this year, making Formosa Vietnam’s top investor, the report said.
Formosa plans to build the steel mill with an initial annual capacity of 7.5 million tonnes at Vung Ang in central Ha Tinh Province, about 30km from Vietnam’s largest iron ore deposit at Thach Khe.
In the second stage of the development, Formosa plans to double output and build a large-scale power plant and urban area, the report said.
Formosa Plastics is the flagship company of the Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), which has interests in plastics, petrochemicals, semiconductors and biochemicals.
Formosa Plastics Group chairman Wang Wen-yuan (王文淵) earlier this year met Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, the Taipei-based Chinese-language Commercial Times reported in March, citing unnamed sources.
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