Speed up work on Vietnam-Singapore Innovation Center, investor urged

The Binh Duong administration has urged leading property developer Becamex IDC to accelerate work on the Vietnam-Singapore i4.0 Innovation Center in the southern province.

The center, to be located within the Becamex-founded Eastern International University (EIU), aims to facilitate the adoption of industry 4.0 (i4.0) technologies in Vietnam’s manufacturing industry.

The center is co-funded by Becamex and the VSIP Group – a joint venture between Becamex and leading Singaporean conglomerate Sembcorp that is known for the Vietnam Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIPs) built across the country. The industrial parks have been hailed as a symbol of the successful economic cooperation between the two countries. As a result, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, during his official visit to Vietnam on August 27-29, is scheduled to update the ground breaking date (September 9) for a VSIP industrial park in Can Tho City as the joint venture’s first park in the Mekong Delta.

The Vietnam-Singapore i4.0 Innovation Center’s training provided by the Vietnam-Singapore i4.0 Innovation Center will be supported by Singapore Polytechnic International and Singapore-based Smart i4.0 Transformation Alliance (SiTA), according to an MoU signed in February 2022 by Sembcorp and Becamex.

The center will also offer best-in-class products and services to small and medium manufacturing enterprises based in industrial parks established by the Vietnam-Singapore joint venture, helping them adopt relevant i4.0 solutions for operational efficiency. It will also build an ecosystem for a future-ready workforce in this sector.

The Sembcorp-Becamex joint venture has established 12 VSIP parks in Vietnam. The joint venture’s 13th IP, VSIP Can Tho will cover around 294 hectares and embrace green production for sustainable industrial development, the developers have said. The VSIP Group has not publicized the investment outlay for its latest project.

Singapore is among Vietnam's top economic partners. The city state is Vietnam’s 15th largest trade partner, while Vietnam is Singapore’s 12th largest trade partner. Bilateral trade turnover reached $9.15 billion in 2022, up 11.57% year-on-year.

Singapore ranks first in ASEAN and second globally in terms of investments in Vietnam with 3,273 projects worth $73.4 billion, according to Vietnamese official data.