A group of Silicon Valley investors has announced an investment worth 200 million USD into a new chip-packaging plant in Ha Noi, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The newly formed Viet Nam-Chipscale Advanced Packaging Services, or V-Caps, will be led by a group of semiconductor executives with valley ties.

The announcement was made during the first-ever Vietnamese Strategic Ventures Network (VSVN) conference in Palo Alto, where hundreds of investors, tech executives, entrepreneurs and Vietnamese Government’s officials gathered to discuss new business opportunities in Viet Nam on August 2-3, said the US newspaper.

The plant will be in the new Hoa Lac High Tech Park and will employ up to 1,500 workers. V-Caps will consider building two more similar facilities, as well. The company will assemble and test chip packages for semiconductor companies for an array of products, from cell phones to personal computers, the paper added.

Speakers at the conference agreed that Viet Nam - “Asia's new roaring tiger”- is increasingly seen as a new destination for tech outsourcing and even some high-end services.

According to Sanford Garrett, one of the seed investors in the V-Caps, the low cost of doing business in Viet Nam is not only the driving force for going to the country.

“When you look at Viet Nam and the culture of the people, what you find when you dig deeper is a value system that is based on loyalty, creativity, knowledge, curiosity, tenacity – all of these give Viet Nam an endearing advantage over most other countries,” he was quoted by the paper as saying.

Quinn Tran, founder of start-up GoQTT.com which will specialise in travel to and in Viet Nam, said that now younger overseas Vietnamese living in the US are hoping to cash in on Viet Nam. They also see themselves as bridges between the valley with the emerging nation and hope to help its development, she added.

“It almost feels like a gold rush,” said Ross Meador, a Berkeley-based attorney who specialises in international law and Viet Nam, referring to the wave of so many overseas Vietnamese living in the US and others heading to Viet Nam. (VNA, Quan doi Nhan dan)