SINGAPORE — Việt Nam was an impressive emerging market with a rapid increase of foreign direct investment (FDI) as well as the appearance of mega-factories in recent years, stimulating technology corporations to expand their presence here.

The statement was made by Eric Moon, vice president and head of Asia sales at Cognex Corporation at the launch of its new office on Monday in Singapore.

Cognex Corporation is one of the world’s leading suppliers of industrial barcode readers and machine vision.

The expansion in Singapore comes on the back of the company launching its first local office in Việt Nam in 2017, and will provide a strong base for Cognex to consolidate and co-ordinate the company’s efforts as it looks to tap into the huge potential of the burgeoning manufacturing industry in ASEAN, specifically Việt Nam, Indonesia and Thailand.

Emerging markets across the region are experiencing increased demand for manufacturing, contributing to steady growth of the overall economy. According to a manufacturing production index compiled by the Japan Centre for Economic Research, there will be a 6.2 per cent year-on-year growth for key markets across Southeast Asia.

According to Wayne Goh, head of ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand at Cognex, Việt Nam was a potential market for manufacturing development and the country accounted for 40 per cent of Cognex’s regional sales.

The key manufacturing industries Cognex is targeting in Việt Nam are the electronics, automobile and motorbike sectors, with well-known foreign manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and Foxconn already utilising the company’s machine vision technologies in their factories.

The Cognex representative said besides targeting foreign enterprises operating in Việt Nam, Cognex would focus on approaching local firms to help increase the quality and lower the cost of manufacturing across all industries through error proofing product assembly lines, detecting defects, identifying and tracking items for manufacturing and logistics, and providing robot guidance.

“Vingroup is one of our target customers at the moment, with the booming development of its manufacturing factories recently,” Moon told Việt Nam News.

Cognex is the world’s leader in the machine vision industry, having shipped more than 1 million vision-based products, representing over US$4 billion in cumulative revenue, since the company’s founding in 1981.

Headquartered in Massachusetts, US, Cognex has regional offices and distributors located throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. — VNS