Vietnam is stepping up efforts to develop its semiconductor industry through cooperation with ASML, the world’s leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer from the Netherlands, according to the Ministry of Finance (MoF).

Finance Minister Nguyen Van Thang (third, from left) and Eduard Stiphout, Senior Vice President in charge of strategic supply chain and procurement at ASML (third, from right).

Finance Minister Nguyen Van Thang has recently held a working session with Eduard Stiphout, Senior Vice President in charge of strategic supply chain and procurement at ASML.

At the meeting, Thang highly appreciated ASML’s growing interest in the Vietnamese market, noting that the group’s dispatch of senior executives to Vietnam and its active participation in SEMIExpo Vietnam 2025 demonstrated a strong commitment to long-term strategic cooperation.

“This is vivid evidence of Vietnam’s potential, its improving investment environment, and increasingly favourable mechanisms and policies in attracting leading global technology groups,” the minister said.

Emphasising Vietnam’s determination to achieve ambitious growth targets in the coming period, Thang reaffirmed the Government’s strong interest in promoting investment in the semiconductor industry.

He noted that strategic orientations, institutional frameworks and human resource development plans for the sector are being vigorously advanced.

In this context, the minister proposed that ASML coordinate with the Dutch Embassy, the National Innovation Centre (NIC) and relevant partners to develop a comprehensive roadmap, appropriate financial mechanisms, and public–private resource mobilisation models to soon establish a semiconductor training, research and development centre at the NIC’s Hoa Lac campus.

He also called on ASML to help connect qualified Vietnamese enterprises to participate more deeply in the group’s global supply chain, thereby diversifying and strengthening ASML’s supply chain resilience in Asia.

At the same time, ASML’s support is sought to help Vietnamese firms develop manufacturing, research and testing infrastructure, including fab labs, semiconductor technical services, technology standards consultancy and management know-how transfer, with a view to gradually forming domestic production capabilities and supporting the establishment of Vietnam’s first chip manufacturing plant.

Training programmes, expert exchanges, internships and scholarship support in the semiconductor field were also highlighted as key areas of cooperation to help build a pool of Vietnamese engineers and specialists capable of meeting the stringent technical standards of ASML and the global semiconductor equipment industry.

For his part, Stiphout said that based on initial discussions, ASML is studying the possibility of expanding its supply chain in Vietnam, cooperating to establish a semiconductor training and R&D centre at the NIC with support from the Dutch Government, and considering setting up an official presence in Vietnam in the near future.

The group is also assessing opportunities to supply equipment to potential customers in the country.

ASML holds a dominant position in the global semiconductor industry thanks to its exclusive ownership of extreme ultraviolet lithography technology, which is critical to producing advanced chips for artificial intelligence, 5G and high-performance computing.

With a market capitalisation of around 400 billion USD, annual revenue of 30–35 billion USD, and more than 40,000 employees across 60 facilities worldwide, ASML plays a central role in the global semiconductor value chain, directly shaping the development roadmap of industry leaders such as TSMC, Samsung and Intel.

Thang affirmed that the MoF is committed to accompanying ASML at the highest level, assigning the NIC as the focal point to coordinate with relevant agencies to promptly address obstacles, ensure a stable and transparent legal environment, and facilitate the effective implementation of cooperation projects, thereby contributing to the development of Vietnam’s innovation ecosystem and high-tech industry.

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