Vietnam News/ANN: More foreign-invested enterprises are expected to relocate or open in the Southern Focal Economic Zone in the last quarter of this year.

Ajinomoto Vietnam, which has been in the country for 27 years, has two manufacturing plants at the Bien Hoa Industrial Park No1 and Long Thanh Industrial Park, both in Dong Nai Province.

With five supply centres and 2,400 employees across the country, the company supplies local customers with spices, food products, beverages and biological fertilisers.

Director-general and president of Ajinomoto Vietnam Keiji Kaneko said the company would build a new plant to make food products on an 8ha area in the Long Thanh IP.

Many other FDI companies also plan to expand their business activities in Vietnam.

In June last year, Bosch announced an investment of $47 million for its plant in Dong Nai Province, following its investments of $23 million in 2015 and $22 million in 2016.

These investments brought the total investment of Bosch in Vietnam to $380 million, according to the Vietnam Investment Review newspaper.

Meanwhile, the Singapore-headquartered OPV Pharmaceutical Joint-Stock company has announced further investment of $47.7 million for its plant in Bien Hoa Industrial Park No 2 in Dong Nai Province, bringing the company’s total investments at the plant to $70 million.

Director of Binh Duong Province’s Department of Planning and Investment Nguyen Thanh Truc said the province attracted FDI flows of $1.3 billion in the first nine months of the year.

“The coming Asian Economic Forum gathered some 700 businesspeople from Vietnam and over the world to Binh Duong Province,” Truc said.

Binh Duong authorities will soon grant investment licenses to new FDI projects, according to Truc.

After 16 years of operation, the park has received FDI of $5.4 billion from multinationals and international hi-tech firms such as Intel, Samsung and Nidec.

The project for Nidec’s Research and Development Centre, for example, is awaiting licensing approval from HCM City authorities.

Nidec has invested in five plants at the park, with total investment of about $500 million.