Amata gets nod for 2nd industrial park in VN
After first investing in Vietnam in 1994, Amata Corp is expanding its presence with a second industrial estate covering nearly 10,000 rai.
The company said yesterday that the Vietnamese government has awarded it a licence to construct and operate an integrated industrial estate in Dong Nai province.
The 9,375-rai Amata Express City is located close to the new Long Thanh International Airport near Ho Chi Minh City and the Dong Nai River. The airport can accommodate 52 million passengers annually and up to 1.5 million tonnes of cargo daily. Facilitating goods transportation would be an outer ring road network.
Somhatai Panicjewa, chief business officer of Amata Corp, said the project would include accommodations and other services. About half of the area will be developed specifically for hi-tech industries. While the investment details are being fleshed out, the first phase is expected to be completed in 2015.
“This is a milestone of Amata’s investment in Vietnam. It’s in line with our strategy to expand industrial land, and to accommodate business relocations as well as demand for manufacturing expansion,” she said.
Amata’s first, 4,375-rai industrial estate in Bien Hua is now home to 120 plants.
In Thailand, Amata has seen an uptick in land sales following the fourth-quarter flooding. In that quarter, it sold 798 rai of land in two industrial estates in the East, bringing 2011 land sales up 20 per cent to 1,551 rai.
This excludes 1,000 rai sold to Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Services Co, a 49:30:21 joint venture of Hua Fang Pharmaceutical Co (Holley Group), AmataCity and Amata Corp.
According to DBS Research, Amata management has set the sales target at 2,000 rai this year, in anticipation of the relocation of factories in the seven flooded industrial estates in Pathum Thani and Ayutthaya, and demand from investors wishing to diversify risks.
DBS expects earnings to jump 92 per cent this year and 79 per cent next year. Amata posted Bt932.20 million in consolidated net profit for 2011, up from Bt695.91 million in the previous year.
Viboon Kromadit, chief operating officer of Amata Summit Ready Build Co, a subsidiary involved in the building of rental factories, said the company is expanding its capacity to cope with an increase in demand for relocations since early this year. The investment budget has been doubled to Bt2 billion to build 100 factories, each with 1,250 square metres of usable space.
“We have been approached by local and foreign investors suffering from the floods, particularly auto-parts makers,” he said.
