Electric vehicle maker BYD will set up a production base for electric cars and parts in Phu Tho Province to supply the domestic and Southeast Asian markets.

Chairman of the Chinese company, Wang Chuanfu, told Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha at a recent meeting that it would invest in manufacturing and assembling electric vehicles (EVs) using the best technologies, according to the Vietnam Government Portal.

BYD would also establish an ecosystem for the production of electric cars, and wants the government to create favorable conditions to speed up the investment, he added.

Ha, appreciating the company’s decision to choose Vietnam as its next manufacturing hub, said it should make the highest quality products that would be competitive in the global market.

BYD, China’s biggest EV brand, is currently building its first overseas production facility in Thailand.

It had also been considering the Philippines and Indonesia, in addition to Vietnam, for a new plant, Bloomberg reported.

Last year BYD surpassed American company Tesla to become the biggest EV manufacturer in the world, shipping 1.85 million vehicles to the latter’s 1.31 million, according to German statistics platform Statista.

The company sold 210,295 vehicles in April, around double the number from a year earlier and marginally higher than in the previous month.

While most of its sales come from China, BYD has been expanding in Asia and into Europe and Latin America.

Exports account for around 6% of its sales.

Globally, EV sales surged 60% last year to reach 10 million units for the first time.

For every seven cars sold last year one was electric, according to the International Energy Agency.

The figure was one in 70 as recently as in 2017.

Source: VNExpress