Lego opened a $1 billion factory in Vietnam, marking a major step in the Danish toymaker’s bid to strengthen its presence across Asia. The new plant is located in the southern province of Binh Duong, is the company’s second facility in Asia and its sixth globally.
The factory is designed to cater exclusively to the growing demand in Asian markets, with products destined for customers in countries such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, and Vietnam itself. It will not export to the United States, where a steep 46 per cent tariff on Vietnamese goods has discouraged many international firms from shipping there.
The company plans to employ more than 4,000 people at the site.
Lego’s CEO, Niels Christiansen, said the move was driven by both strategic and practical factors.
He said that it was important “to have proximity to some of the countries where we have a lot of revenue and a lot of Lego fans.”
“It was also important that we can have very high skilled labour and the level in Vietnam is strong,” he told news agency AFP.
Eco friendly operations: ‘Planet that the children inherit’
The company is aiming to have the factory fully powered by renewable energy by 2026, as a part of the toymaker’s quest to stop adding greenhouse gases by 2050. It has a shorter-term target of reducing emissions by 37% by 2032, news agency AP reported.
“We just want to make sure that the planet that the children inherit when they grow up needs to be a planet that is still there. That is functional,” Christiansen said.
The privately owned company, which currently manufactures its bricks using oil-based plastic, says it has poured more than $1.2 billion into developing more sustainable alternatives.
However, the journey toward greener materials has faced many failures.
More than 12,000 rooftop solar panels have already been installed as part of that goal.
Christiansen added that while recent growth in China has slowed, Asia-Pacific is still a “really big opportunity”.
Lego’s other factories are located in Europe, Mexico and China, as the company continues to broaden its global manufacturing network in step with rising demand.
