Today was quite a lot. We had two site visits to Coherent and the Saigon High-Tech Park. If I’m being entirely honest, a lot of this went right over my head. Coherent is a semi conductor manufacturing company and Saigon Hi-Tech Park is made of of companies that do similar things. There were a lot of technical terms that probably made a lot more scene to the engineers but the tour itself and what I did understand was quite interesting. I was intrigued by Coherent’s rapid expansion in Vietnam. They have been here for 25 years and are continuing to expand the operations in Vietnam. They have slowly acquired more building within their current complex but are now developing a whole new complex in a new industrial park. This is all expansion too, as they are keeping all their existing plants. I also found the logistics side of this expansion very interesting and smart as these plants are being built very close to the new airport in Saigon which should make logistics much easier. Another thing I learned and found very cool about Coherent was the magnitude of where their products are. They are everywhere, from our cars and all the way to space in the James Webb telescope. It was neat to see the vastness of their production.
The second par of the day was spent at Saigon Hi-Tech Park. This is one of three Vietnamese government parks in the country. This one however is special. They require all the companies within to place a focus on R&D. I liked this a lot as it creates more innovation within Vietnam. We saw big companies like Samsung that have huge plants here, and to know that they are innovating in Vietnam, a developing nation, is very cool to hear. Another interesting part of the park was its school/teaching center. This is a place within the park where they teach Vietnamese workers how to use these machines and do so in a safe and efficient manner. Too often we see images from developing nations of the factory conditions and they can be hard to look at. So, it’s very nice to see Vietnam offering this and making these places safer for everyone.
It was certainly a long day with a lot of information, a lot of which i couldn’t fully understand. However, what we saw was very interesting and it was clear to see that good things are taking place here. Seeing all the FDI first hand is neat and creates a clearer picture of Vietnams growth. We are now starting to wrap up these visits and the picture of the economy is starting to become much more clear. Looking forward to sum up what we saw in our closing presentations, but for now we will enjoy the time we have left here!
