Another piece added to the industrial map of Vietnam’s South-Central Coast: the regional significance of Stavian’s new industrial park project in Khanh Hoa Province

Another Piece of the Puzzle in Vietnam’s South Central Coastal Industrial Map: The Regional Significance of Stavian Securing a New Industrial Park Project in Khanh Hoa Province

Vietnam’s Khanh Hoa Province recently approved Stavian Industrial Park as the investor for the Ninh Thuan Industrial Park project. On the surface, this is simply an administrative move to put a local industrial park development in place. In reality, however, it points to a much larger regional theme: ASEAN manufacturing and industrial chain restructuring are shifting from “single-point factory relocation” to a coordinated “park–port–economic zone” layout.

According to public information, the project is located in Ninh Hoa Commune, Khanh Hoa Province, with a planned area of more than 300 hectares, total investment of nearly VND 4 trillion, and an operating term of 70 years. More importantly, it is close to seaport infrastructure and Van Phong Economic Zone — meaning the project is not an isolated land development, but one embedded in Vietnam’s coastal industrial corridor and logistics network.

Industrial parks are no longer just “land,” but regional supply chain interfaces

In ASEAN’s manufacturing landscape, the role of industrial parks has already changed. In the past, industrial parks were mainly used to attract foreign investment and provide standardized factory space and basic supporting facilities. Today, they increasingly function as “interface stations” in the supply chain, determining whether companies can more quickly complete raw material input, component distribution, finished goods export, and cross-border delivery.

This project in Khanh Hoa Province, being next to ports and an economic zone, means its potential appeal comes not only from low-cost land, but also from seaborne accessibility, logistics efficiency, and park synergy. For manufacturing companies seeking an ASEAN presence, such projects are often more strategically valuable than setting up a single standalone factory, because they provide a scalable industrial ecosystem.

This also reflects a broader trend: amid China+1 strategies and regional division-of-labor adjustments under the RCEP framework, when companies choose ASEAN destinations, they are no longer considering only wage levels, but also port connectivity, park maturity, supporting services, and room for secondary investment.

Khanh Hoa’s investment attraction logic: from traditional industry to green and digital development

Khanh Hoa Province has recently emphasized attracting investments related to the digital economy, green growth, innovation, and digital transformation. This orientation is important because it shows that the local government is not satisfied with traditional labor-intensive manufacturing, but hopes to secure higher-value-added segments in the next round of industrial relocation.

There are two layers to this.

First, Vietnam’s south-central coastal region is trying to raise its position within the national industrial system. Compared with the traditional manufacturing clusters in the north and the more established industrial belt in the south, the south-central coast has historically been relatively weaker in industrial density, supply chain completeness, and supporting capacity. But if it can leverage ports, economic zones, and new industrial parks to form a combined advantage, it may find its own place in regional division of labor.

Second, green and digitalization are no longer just policy slogans, but a “new threshold” in investment attraction.Second, green development and digitalization are no longer just policy slogans, but the “new threshold” in investment promotion competition. More and more multinational companies, when selecting locations in ASEAN, will assess whether an industrial park has energy security, environmental standards, digital management capabilities, and room for long-term expansion. For local governments, whether these requirements can be translated into actual infrastructure and approval efficiency directly affects investment attraction results.

Stavian’s expansion of its industrial network reflects the rise of Vietnam’s local platform developers

Stavian Industrial Park’s recent qualification as a project investor also shows that Vietnam’s local industrial infrastructure companies are playing a more active role.

Amid the wave of manufacturing relocation in ASEAN, the market used to focus more on the investment choices of multinational manufacturers. Today, it is necessary to pay attention to who is providing industrial parks, who is organizing industrial space, and who is building local investment promotion platforms. If local industrial park developers have financing, development, investment promotion, and long-term operational capabilities, they are no longer just land providers, but organizers of regional industrial chains.

This is especially important for Vietnam. As foreign-funded manufacturing projects continue to enter, competition is no longer limited to “attracting the first factory,” but to how to form upstream and downstream clusters around leading enterprises, thereby enhancing local industrial value-added and export resilience. If industrial parks can build a more complete support system between processing, manufacturing, supporting industries, and high value-added production, they can increase the probability of regional industrial upgrading.

Implications for ASEAN: port-based industrial parks will become the focus of the next round of competition

From a broader ASEAN perspective, the project in Khanh Hoa Province reflects the rising importance of port-based industrial parks in regional competition.

In Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, competition for manufacturing investment is shifting from merely offering tax incentives to competing on whether industrial parks are close to ports, airports, expressways, and power systems. As global supply chains place greater emphasis on resilience and redundancy, industrial spaces near the coast, ports, and logistics hubs will become more attractive.

This kind of layout also resonates with the expansion of regional trade under the RCEP framework. Trade within ASEAN and the flow of intermediate goods between ASEAN and major East Asian economies require more efficient coordination between ports and industrial parks. In other words, industrial parks are not only serving the local economy, but also acting as nodes in regional production networks.

Future focus: who can turn industrial parks into “industrial platforms”

The ultimate significance of the Ninh Tho Industrial Park project does not depend on a piece of approval, but on whether it can achieve three things in the future:

• Infrastructure delivery speed: whether roads, electricity, water supply, sewage treatment, and port connections are truly in place;
• Quality of industrial investment promotion: whether it can attract processing and manufacturing, supporting industries, and high value-added production, rather than only low-end relocation;
• Regional coordination capability: whether it can work in tandem with the Yunfeng Economic Zone and surrounding logistics networks to reduce enterprises’ overall operating costs.If these conditions can be realized, Khanh Hoa Province has a chance to turn a new industrial park into a foothold for industrial upgrading along the south-central coast. For ASEAN, projects like this indicate that regional competition is entering a more mature stage: it is no longer about who has more land, but about who can turn land into a sustainable industrial platform.

Conclusion

On the surface, Stavian Industrial Park’s qualification for project investment in Khanh Hoa Province is a step forward in local industrial development in Vietnam; at the regional level, it reflects several long-term directions in ASEAN manufacturing布局: coastalization, park-based development, logistics integration, and green transition.

Over the next few years, ASEAN countries will be competing for more than factory orders—they will be competing for key nodes in the industrial chain. Whoever can integrate industrial parks, ports, economic zones, and digital investment promotion into a more efficient system will be more likely to take the lead in the restructuring of regional supply chains.