Billions of dollars in key sectors
Near the end of August, Nam Dinh province leaders had a meeting with representatives of Sumitomo Corporation from Japan. One of the contents mentioned was that Sumitomo carefully researched to decide to invest in an industrial park (IP) project with a scale of 300 hectares or more.
Sumitomo Corporation was founded in 1919. This global enterprise has equity of 26.6 billion USD, with hundreds of subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide.
In Vietnam, Sumitomo established Thang Long Industrial Park in 1997, then expanded to Thang Long II Industrial Park in Hung Yen province, Thang Long Vinh Phuc Industrial Park in Vinh Phuc province. The total scale is over 1,012 hectares and the total investment capital is 404 million USD.
Sumitomo is also known as the enterprise that cooperates with BRG Group of businesswoman Nguyen Thi Nga to develop a smart urban area in the North of Hanoi, with a total investment of 4.2 billion USD.
In Khanh Hoa, Sumitomo is the investor of the Van Phong 1 BOT Thermal Power Plant, with a capacity of 1,320 MW and a total registered capital of 2.58 billion USD.
In the financial market, the influence of Japanese investors is huge. Japanese corporations have invested about 6 billion USD to become strategic shareholders of 5 banks, many financial, insurance and fintech companies.
In the banking and finance sector, Sumitomo Life spent 360 million USD to hold more than 22% of Bao Viet Group (BVH) and become a strategic shareholder of this group. Sumitomo Life will consider increasing its investment in BVH in the near future.
At the end of March 2023, VPBank sold 15% of its capital to Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and earned 1.5 billion USD. Previously, in May 2022, VPBank and SMBC signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on business cooperation during the Japanese Prime Minister's visit to Vietnam.
This is a further move by SMBC to expand its presence in Asia and strengthen digital banking, one of SMBC's pillar goals.
Previously in October 2021, SMBC let SMBC Consumer Finance Company (a subsidiary of this group) acquire 49% of the charter capital at VPBank SMBC Finance Company (FE Credit).
Since late 2012, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) has spent 743 million USD to buy 20% of VietinBank (CTG) shares. This is also the push that helps VietinBank grow remarkably and used to be the commercial bank with the largest charter capital and strongest shareholder structure in Vietnam.
Previously, at Vietcombank (VCB), in September 2011, Japan's Mizuho Bank spent more than 567 million USD to buy 347 million shares, equivalent to 15% of capital at VCB. In 2019, Mizuho continued to buy more Vietcombank shares to maintain this ratio.
In addition, Mizuho and a group of investors poured $200 million into M_Service, the parent company of the Momo e-wallet. Japan's SoftBank and Singapore's GIC invested about $200 million into VnLife, the parent company of the Vnpay app.
Before that, Daiwa Securities invested in SSI Securities in 2008. SBI Holdings invested in TPBank in 2010. Currently, these shares are worth hundreds of millions of USD. A member of SBI Holdings also owns more than 24% of FPTS Securities.
After more than a decade of shopping, the Japanese own a series of Vietnamese brands.
It can be seen that the majority of strategic shareholders of Vietnamese banks are Japanese financial groups. For many years, the banking and finance sector has always been an attractive destination for investors from the "land of the rising sun". Banks are one of the organizations that attract the most billion-dollar capital flows from Japanese giants to Vietnam.
The deal of spending 1.5 billion USD to buy 15% of VPBank's capital and nearly 1.4 billion USD to buy 49% of FE Credit's capital by SMBC shows that Japanese investors continue to be interested in Vietnam's banking and finance sector. They highly appreciate the value of Vietnamese enterprises.
Currently, Japanese financial groups have become strategic shareholders of many other banks and financial insurance companies such as: OCB, HD Saison or MCredit...
Recently, Saigon - Hanoi Bank (SHB) signed agreements to transfer charter capital at Saigon - Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank Finance Company Limited (SHB Finance) to Ayudhya Public Company Limited (Krungsri) of Thailand - a strategic member of Japan's MUFG Group.
ENEOS Corporation from Japan also spent a huge amount of money to buy and currently holds more than 169 million PLX shares, equivalent to nearly 12.6% of the shares of Vietnam National Petroleum Group (PLX). JX Nippon Oil & Energy Vietnam Consulting and Holdings Co., Ltd. (a subsidiary of ENEOS) is holding more than 103 million PLX shares, equivalent to nearly 7.7%.
Not only banking and finance and oil and gas, the Japanese also buy and own a series of leading Vietnamese brands in many fields from pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, fashion...
In Binh Duong, Becamex IDC Corporation signed a cooperation agreement with AEON Group (Japan). Over the years, AEON has opened many hypermarkets in many provinces and cities across the country. In the past, AEON bought Citimart supermarket.
Investors also saw Eath Chemical buy the manufacturer of the Gift detergent brand - A My Gia. Japan's Sojitz bought Saigon Paper, while Taisho bought Hau Giang Pharmaceutical (DHG). Maruha Nichiro acquired Saigon Food...
Besides, after the Covid-19 pandemic, many Japanese companies are interested and considering plans to move part of their production chain to Vietnam.
Today, September 21, Vietnam and Japan celebrate the 50th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations (1973-2023). Vietnam - Japan relations are currently at a better stage than ever, but there is still much potential to develop and raise them to even greater heights. The fact that the late Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and Prime Minister Kishida Fumio chose Vietnam as their first foreign country to visit after taking office, as well as Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh's visit to Japan after Prime Minister Kishida Fumio took office (in 2021) is the clearest evidence of the respect both sides have for each other. Currently, Japan ranks second among countries investing foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam (after South Korea), with registered capital of about 69 billion USD in more than 5,000 projects. Besides, over the past decade, Japanese enterprises have poured tens of billions of USD into buying shares of Vietnamese enterprises. |
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