Denmark jewelry maker Pandora breaks ground on $150 mln facility in southern Vietnam

Pandora, the world’s largest jewelry brand, broke ground on a new $150 million crafting facility in Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park 3 (VSIP 3) on Thursday in Binh Duong province, about 40 km north of Ho Chi Minh City.

The new facility, scheduled to open in early 2026, will produce up to 60 million pieces of jewellery per year. It will support Pandora’s long-term growth and boost the company's crafting capacity by around 50%.

The ground-breaking ceremony was attended by Jacob Jensen, Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture, and Fisheries; Vo Van Minh, Chairman of Binh Duong province; Nicolai Prytz, Danish Ambassador to Vietnam; representatives from the Vietnamese central government and provincial agencies, and Pandora executives, including president and CEO Alexander Lacik.

“We are ready to start our chapter in Vietnam, and I am proud to witness this important milestone on our growth journey. The new crafting facility in Vietnam is needed to meet future demand and keep pace with our growth,” president and CEO Alexander Lacik.

The new facility will be Pandora’s fourth manufacturing site and the first outside Thailand. The site covers 7.5 hectares and the buildings will measure more than 50,000 square meters.

It will run on 100% renewable energy and will be constructed in accordance with LEED Gold standards, a leading green building certification. This will contribute to Pandora’s sustainability goals of halving carbon emissions across its full supply chain by 2030 and achieving net zero by 2040.

Pandora's chief supply officer Jeerasage Purnasamriddhi told The Investor that Pandora had calculated very carefully when choosing Vietnam as the destination and Binh Duong province as the factory location after conducting surveys in other countries.

“We analyzed 13 distinct criteria, and Vietnam came out on top. What is most crucial to us is access to the labor force and the silversmith culture that exists in Vietnam. Second, there is close coordination across government departments, as well as a focus on sustainable development. The third factor is access to quality infrastructure. Vietnam, in particular, is spending extensively in the region's roadways and sea and air transport infrastructure. So these are the primary reasons why we decided to establish a manufacturing facility in Vietnam,” said Lacik.

Jacob Jensen, Danish Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, told the event: "Vietnam has become an increasingly important market for Danish investors, due to both the country’s conductive business environment and its commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050. The new factory will be a great success story of Denmark’s global exports and an embodiment of our partnership with Vietnam in the green transition and fight against climate change."

"By engaging in cutting-edge technology and sustainable production practices, we are happy to contribute to Vietnam’s sustainable economic growth and development of the local skilled workforce," said Jensen.

The facility will employ up to 7,000 craftspeople, and Pandora plans to kick off recruitment in the first half of 2025.

In 2023, Pandora sold 107 million pieces of jewellery, produced across three crafting facilities in Bangkok and Lamphun, Thailand. Each piece is hand-finished by skilled craftspeople. Earlier this year, Pandora announced that it will be using only recycled silver and gold in the production of its jewellery, a move that will avoid emmitting 58,000 tons CO2 every year.

VSIP 3 also hosts a Lego factory, another major Danish investment. In February 2024, the Danish toymaker said construction of the factory was 61.7% complete, on schedule and set to begin partial operations this August.

After announcing a $1 billion investment in December 2021, Lego kicked off factory construction in November 2022. It said that the 44-hectare state-of-the-art factory at VSIP 3 was designed to be Lego’s most sustainable facility to date, supporting the toymaker’s ambition to achieve a 37% cut in absolute global carbon emissions by 2032.