Final Piece of Da Nang Free Trade Zone Signed Off. Operations Not Expected Before 2032

FTZ News: Da Nang approves last big parcel of free trade zone; investor not yet named DA NANG, Vietnam — Officials in Da Nang approved a plan for the last major piece of Vietnam’s first free trade zone: 276 hectares set aside for factories, data centers and warehouses. The cost is 3.52 trillion dong, roughly $141 million. Full operation is not expected before 2032.

The Da Nang People’s Committee signed off on the investment outline for Functional Area 7, the final parcel in a zone that covers 1,881 hectares across several sites that do not touch one another. Construction is set to start in the fourth quarter of 2027. No investor has been named.

The plan has already been sent to the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park joint venture for review. Land clearance is not expected to finish before late 2029. Secondary investors are supposed to begin looking at plots in 2028 while roads and utilities are still being installed.

Vu Quang Hung, head of the Da Nang Special Economic Zone Authority, has said the full zone could account for nearly 18 percent of the city’s gross regional product and create 127,000 jobs by 2040.

Area 7 is planned for manufacturing, information technology, digital industries and logistics. After the central government approved the zone in June 2025, the city has presented it as a link on shipping routes that start at the new Lien Chieu deep-water port, run inland along the East-West corridor through Laos and Thailand, and continue south along the coast toward Chu Lai. The port is still unfinished.

Other sections are further along. One local company began work on a 90-hectare site last year; another started on 75 hectares this summer.

Last week the city approved a 154-hectare commercial and service zone backed by a Korean-Vietnamese joint venture. Da Nang has attracted more than 1,100 foreign projects worth about $11.2 billion.

Most of that investment came under older industrial-zone rules. The free trade zone is intended to provide tighter customs procedures, longer land leases and lower taxes. The city is also setting up an international financial center. Local planners treat the two projects as connected./.