HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. plans to build a $670 million plant to make mobile phone handsets in northern Vietnam, a Vietnamese official said Friday.
The world's second largest handset maker has been pushing for the Vietnam plant for nearly a year and submitted the proposal to authorities in Bac Ninh province last month, said Nguyen Quang Thanh of the provincial planning and investment department.
''They still lack some papers,'' Thanh said ''Once they fill in all necessary papers, we will grant the investment license right away.''
The plant will produce 30 million mobile phone handsets a year in the first stage and will gradually expand to produce 100 million units, he said. Bac Ninh is 19 miles northeast of Hanoi.
Samsung Electronics executives in Hanoi were not available for comment Friday. But company officials had earlier said that they were considering Vietnam for its cheap labor.
Besides Samsung's domestic handset plant at Gumi, some 160 miles southeast of Seoul, Samsung also has handset facilities in China, India and Brazil.
Foreign investment pledges in Vietnam surged nearly 70 percent last year to a record $20.3 billion, following the country's admission to the World Trade Organization.
