Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, is seeking Vietnam's approval to build a plant with an investment of 605 million U.S. dollars in the country's commercial center.

"We're considering an investment application from Intel Asia Holding Ltd. (an Intel affiliate registered in China's Hong Kong). This wholly foreign-owned project is to produce microprocessors in the Ho Chi Minh City Hi-Tech Park (in southern Ho Chi Minh City) in 50 years," an official from the Foreign Investment Department under Vietnam's Ministry of Planning and Investment said on condition of anonymity.

According to the application, all products of the chip-making plant are for export, the official said, noting that the plant will employ some 2,000 people.

Intel officials refused to give any information about the project.

Several senior officials from the U.S.-based Intel Corporation have recently toured Vietnam. The chipmaker's president Paul Otellini visited the country in June 2005.

Vietnam is fostering high technologies, including information technology, in a move to realize the target of basically becoming an industrial country by 2020. Under Vietnam's strategy on developing information technology and telecommunications, every 100 residents will have 32-42 phones, over 10 personal computers, and 8-12 Internet subscribers by 2010.

Vietnam earned over 1.4 billion dollars from exporting electronics goods, including computers, mainly to Japan and Southeast Asian countries, in 2005, up 34.1 percent against 2004, according to the country's General Statistics Office.

Source: Xinhua