Doosan Vina, a proud Vietnamese company

Doosan Vina CEO and General Director Jung Yeon In

Doosan Vina’s products are highly appreciated by the power industry and its partners due to the quality and standards which you’ve established. Could you please talk about your company’s products produced for the domestic and oversea markets in recent years?

Since our grand opening in 2009, our “Made in Vietnam” products are now available in 28 countries worldwide. The products were made in 197 separate projects with a total value of US$2.4 billion and a combined weight of 350,000 tonnes.
After a short period of time Vietnam’s reputation has increased and the country plays a big role as a growing and developing force in heavy industry.

One of our main products lines is boilers, which are the heart of a thermal power plant and are critical to development. Doosan Vina’s Boiler Shop has produced power plant boilers that are adding 11,180 MW to the world’s grid for perspective that is equivalent to Vietnam’s total power production from all sources in 2007 when Doosan Vina broke ground. Doosan Vina’s boilers are now producing electricity in India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Vietnam.

In Vietnam, our boilers are operational at the Mong Duong II Power Plant and will soon be generating electricity at the power plants of Vinh Tan IV, Vinh Tan IV Extension and Song Hau I adding a total of 4,200 MW to Vietnam’s grid. When compared with 11,180 MW generated in 2007, this total represents a nearly 50 percent increase.

At Doosan Vina’s Material Handling Systems Shop or MHS we have produced a total of 65 cranes for some of the world’s busiest ports. These massive cranes are the backbone of port logistics and modern trade. They can weigh as much as 1,480 tonnes, stand 73.8 meters tall and can safely, efficiently and quickly load and unload 75-tonne cargo containers with ease. Our crane clients are global leaders and some names you may recognize are PSA in Singapore, JNPT in India and Samarinda in Indonesia.

Here in Vietnam, our cranes are busy loading Vietnamese products for delivery to customers around the globe. They are working at the Saigon New Port, Da Nang Port and Nghi Son Refinery Port.

Over at the Water Shop Doosan Vina proudly includes the UAE, Chile and Saudi Arabia as desalination customers. The desalination plants produced at Doosan Vina are now producing nearly a billion liters of water per day, satisfying the daily needs of 2.5 million people. Each of the eight desalination plants produced for the Ras Al Khair Desalination Plant in Saudi Arabia by the Water shop is the size of a football pitch, weighs 4,500 tonnes and is as tall as a five-storey building and can produce 92 million liters of potable water per day.

Could you please tell us about the company’s advantages and difficulties during the manufacturing and sales?

The advantages that have had a positive impact on the development of Doosan Vina can be summed up in three categories.
First is the support and encouragement we have received from officials at all levels of government. Whether the support was local, regional or national, leaders at each step along the way were there to assist us. We share a vision for the nation and the people of Vietnam so the mission of the Vietnamese government and ours is quite similar.

Next is the dedication of our employees, many have been with us from the very early days, nearly nine years ago. They have worked hard to build the company and to see that our products are the best in the world; and that we have the highest possible customer satisfaction record in the world of heavy industry.

The final reason behind our success is the strong support we have had from our headquarters in the Republic of Korea. They have provided the foundation for our development, supplying the capital to be sure that our equipment and facilities are the best available and sending international experts in heavy industry to train and work with our Vietnamese staff.

These are the three legs that we have stood on throughout our development and have enabled us to build the company.

However, as with any new enterprise you must expect a couple of bumps in the road and we certainly had a few. Being the first heavy industrial complex of this scope and scale, there were some obstacles related to the regulations governing import and export taxation, as was a readily available skilled and unskilled labor force that was trained and ready to go to work.

Another area of concern that required some education was employee acceptance of safety rules and the need for compliance with all standards.

These were startup issues and as said above the government was always ready to listen and work with us to find solutions that worked for all parties and together we were able to resolve them to everyone’s satisfaction.

Your products have been used in several power projects. However, considering Doosan Vina’s manufacturing capacity, do you have any expectation in supplying you products?

Above we spoke of the 11,180 MW we’ve already added to the global power grid and the 4,200 MW that will soon be added to Vietnam’s grid.

We have the largest and most talented Vietnamese power plant engineering, design and production staff in the country and they are fully capable and ready to meet any challenge. Our facilities are state-of-the-art and our management systems run like a finely tuned F1 race car; so yes we are ready and are working closely with the Vietnamese leadership on ways to make sure that Vietnamese are the ones building and benefiting from power plant infrastructure developments so that the government’s goals are met and power supply is secure.