While news of Goertek Vina's decision to halt operations at its audio and multimedia products manufacturing plant in Bac Ninh continues to surprise many observers, the company remains one of the province's largest investors to date.

Since entering Viet Nam in 2013, China’s Goertek, a manufacturing partners of Apples’ AirPods, has built four factories in Bac Ninh with registered capital of more than 1.3 billion USD. Most recently, it poured additional 130 million USD to its project at Nam Son – Hap Linh Industrial Park, raising its total investment there to 540 million USD.

Goertek Chairman Jiang Bin revealed during meetings with local authorities that the corporation has plans to expand its factories in Viet Nam, including Bac Ninh.

Beyond Goertek projects, the province presented investment certificates to China-based Luxshare-ICT’s smart phone production project worth 300 million USD while Foxconn continues investment in the locality.

As of the end of August, Bac Ninh lured 4.68 billion USD in FDI, as compared to nearly 4.4 billion USD injected to the southern economic hub, which also leverages the FDI magnets of Binh Duong and Ba Ria – Vung Tau.

According to the Ministry of Finance’s Foreign Investment Agency, the merger of Bac Ninh and Bac Giang is seen as a strategic move to shape up a close-looped electronic manufacturing chain, spanning from component processing to final product assembly and export.

Already the FDI capital of northern Viet Nam with major projects from Samsung, Canon, and Goertek, Bac Ninh has doubled its strength following its merger with Bac Giang, another magnet for global investment flows with commitments from Foxconn, HanaMicron, and Luxshare.

Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Vuong Quoc Tuan said that the province will continue improving its investment climate, promoting administrative reform, and removing bottlenecks for investors to attract more FDI projects.

Following the mergers, the rankings of FDI capitals have undergone significant changes. Rounding out the top ten included Ha Noi (3.8 billion USD), Dong Nai (2.654 billion USD), Hai Phong (1.7 billion USD), Tay Ninh (1.56 billion USD), Ninh Binh (1.533 billion USD), and Hung Yen (nearly 1.4 billion USD).