"Vietnam is very important and increasingly important to the US semiconductor industry"

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives Mr. John Neuffer, President of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) - Photo: VGP

On the afternoon of December 10, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh received Mr. John Neuffer, Chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), and leaders of the country's leading semiconductor enterprises.

Representing the US semiconductor industry, SIA currently gathers a network of member enterprises that account for 99% of the US semiconductor industry's revenue, of which 2/3 are foreign semiconductor enterprises.

Mr. John Neuffer visited Vietnam twice in January 2023 and October 2023. This time, SIA organized a delegation of leading US semiconductor enterprises, including Intel, Ampere, Marvell, Cirrus Logic, Infineon, Skyworks to visit and work in Vietnam from December 10-11, 2024.

At the meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that he always welcomes Chairman John Neuffer to visit and work in Vietnam; highly appreciated the Chairman and SIA for having many activities and initiatives to support Vietnam in developing the semiconductor industry, connecting many SIA member enterprises to seek business and cooperation opportunities in Vietnam.

Informing about Vietnam's policies and guidelines, the Prime Minister said that Vietnam continues to maintain macroeconomic stability, a peaceful environment, maintain independence, sovereignty, ensure national defense, security, social order and safety.

At the same time, promote 3 strategic breakthroughs in institutions, infrastructure (especially transport infrastructure, digital infrastructure) and human resources, reform administrative procedures, improve the investment environment, and open business, thereby creating new development space, reducing time, reducing costs, facilitating and meeting the needs of investors, increasing the competitiveness of goods, helping investors feel secure in long-term, sustainable and effective cooperation with Vietnam.

Informing about Vietnam's policies, potentials and advantages in promoting the development of science and technology, innovation and semiconductor chips, the Prime Minister said that Vietnam will have a support policy for large investors in this field with the spirit of "harmonious benefits, shared risks" between the State, businesses and people, "listening and understanding together, sharing vision and action together, doing together, winning together, enjoying together, developing together, sharing joy, happiness and pride".

Scene of the reception - Photo: VGP

The Prime Minister asked SIA to continue to call on US corporations to cooperate and invest more deeply and effectively with Vietnam in the fields of semiconductors, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, etc., which are very important fields for the future of humanity as well as the development of each country; especially coordinating and supporting Vietnamese enterprises to participate in the global supply chain, promoting infrastructure investment cooperation activities, building training facilities, and semiconductor research and development centers.

Along with that, the Prime Minister asked the Chairman and SIA enterprises to have a voice with the US government to continue to promote relations with Vietnam more deeply, substantially, and effectively, to soon recognize Vietnam as a market economy and abolish restrictions related to high-tech exports to Vietnam.

In addition, the Ministry of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung asked SIA to promote cooperation and support among member enterprises to help Vietnam become a global center for semiconductor human resources.

For his part, SIA Chairman John Neuffer expressed his pleasure at witnessing Vietnam's strong development and the ever-better relationship between Vietnam and the US, affirming that Vietnam is an important and attractive destination for investors.

He also highly appreciated Vietnam's initiatives and efforts in developing the semiconductor industry, especially the development strategy of this industry issued by the Government and the training program for at least 50,000 semiconductor engineers. Vietnam has also made a lot of progress in this field in recent times, especially in diversifying and strongly developing the supply chain.

He shared more about Vietnam's advantages, such as Vietnamese people are the world's leading hard-working workers; along with the construction of important infrastructures, such as electricity, water, telecommunications, data centers... and potential domestic partners such as Viettel.

Stating that there are many new and great opportunities for US businesses in Vietnam, SIA members highly appreciated the cooperation enthusiasm of the Vietnamese side. He said that SIA and US businesses are very interested in the US-Vietnam relationship and will continue to accompany and support Vietnam in developing the semiconductor industry and building a strong supply chain.

Assessing Vietnam as a reliable partner, the future in Vietnam is very bright, Vietnam is very important and increasingly important to the US semiconductor industry, in the strategy of SIA businesses, the SIA Chairman said that he will return to Vietnam many times and will continue to promote and strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

Also at the meeting, the businesses in the delegation affirmed that they highly value the Vietnamese market, informed about the situation of operations and plans to expand cooperation and investment in Vietnam in the coming time.