Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung (left) addresses the irst meeting of the National Steering Committee for Semiconductor Industry Development in Ha held Noi on December 14, 2024. Photo: VGP

Given the trend of supply chain diversification and complex geopolitical landscape in the world, Viet Nam has emerged as an attractive investment destination for global semiconductor companies thanks to its high-quality workforce, high investment in infrastructure, increasingly open and transparent policy, high political determination and enthusiasm, said Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung at the first meeting of the National Steering Committee for Semiconductor Industry Development in Ha held Noi on Saturday.

In a drastic move, the Government established a national steering committee for semiconductor industry development led by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and approved the Program for human resource development for semiconductor industry through 2030, orientations to 2050 and the Strategy for semiconductor industry development until 2030, Nguyen said.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment has had a number of working sessions with global tech giants such as Qualcomm, Google, Meta, LAM Research, Qorvo, AlChip... to discuss investment opportunities in Viet Nam.

The Government also signed a cooperation agreement with NVIDIA, under which the latter will establish a Research and Development Center and an Artificial Intelligence Data Center in Viet Nam.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment has assigned the National Innovation Center (NIC) to coordinate with the Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI) – a global organization that brings together more than 3,000 member companies – to organize the Viet Nam Semiconductor Industry Exhibition 2024 (SEMIExpo Viet Nam 2024) in Ha Noi last month.

Developing the semiconductor industry is Viet Nam's strategic choice and top priority to boost growth, emphasized Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

To sustain growth, it is necessary to renew the country's traditional growth drivers such as investment, export and consumption while promoting new ones like digital transformation, green conversion, circular economy, knowledge economy, sharing economy, and especially new fronts like semiconductor, artificial intelligence, internet of things, cloud computing in order to create new production forces, Pham emphasized.

Regarding advantages for developing semiconductor industry, Pham said Viet Nam ranks second in the world in terms of rare earth reserves and is located in a favorable geographic region that accounts for 70 percent of the world's semiconductor output.

Viet Nam is also one of the 16 populous countries in the world and ranks 44^th out of 133 economies in terms of innovation.

The Southeast Asian nation is home to more than 50 chip design enterprises with a workforce of over 6,000 engineers; seven testing and packaging factories with around 6,000 engineers and more than 10,000 technicians.

The country has lured 174 semiconductor projects with total registered capital of nearly US$11.6 billion.