By Clifford Coonan, The Irish Times
Another country feeling the economic brunt of a political maelstrom is Vietnam. Thousands of Vietnamese went on the rampage last week, setting fire to foreign factories and causing damage to industrial zones in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces near Saigon.
This photo taken on May 14, 2014 shows smoke billowing from a Taiwanese furniture factory in Binh Duong as anti-China protesters set more than a dozen factories on fire in Vietnam, according to state media, in an escalating backlash against Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig in contested waters. The US on May 16, betrayed increasing disquiet over the potential for serious clashes between China and Vietnam over disputed South China Sea territory, calling on both sides to show restraint. (Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images)
They were protesting after a Chinese state-owned oil company placed a giant oil rig in part of the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam.
One of the biggest victims of the violence was Formosa Plastics Group, Taiwan’s biggest investor in Vietnam, which is building a giant steel plant in the Ha Tinh industrial park, one of the facilities which are central to the country’s €101 billion economy.
The country has 190 registered industrial parks and they employ about 2.1 million people. About one-third of Vietnam’s export revenues come from these industrial parks.
Economic impact
The Formosa Plastics plant was set on fire after fighting between its Vietnamese and Chinese workers, in which one Chinese worker was killed and 90 others injured. When it is finished in 2017, the plant is expected to be south-east Asia’s largest steel-making facility.
Read the full article by Clifford Coonan from The Irish Times.
