South Korea's major railcar maker Hyundai Rotem and Vietnam's largest private conglomerate Thaco (Truong Hai) signed a technology transfer agreement in Hanoi on June 11, 2026. It's an accord to manufacture metro cars within Vietnam. It marks a turning point where Vietnam, which had been importing finished vehicles, shifts to the side that assembles urban rail cars at home. For those traveling to Ho Chi Minh City, it's an event where the future map\u2014of the subway you can experience now spreading from \"dots\" to \"lines\" and eventually to a \"network\"\u2014has become concretely visible in the form of a contract.<\/p>\n
This framework is two-tiered. First, on April 23, 2026, a contract to supply 162 cars for Ho Chi Minh City's urban rail was signed. On top of that, on June 11, a technology transfer agreement to produce the cars domestically was signed. The content: Hyundai Rotem hands over blueprints, technical documents, and the manufacturing and quality-control systems, trains Vietnamese engineers in South Korea, and then supports them locally too.<\/p>\n
Of the 162 cars, 6 are assembled as finished vehicles in South Korea, and the remaining 156 are brought to Vietnam in knock-down form\u2014that is, as parts kits\u2014and assembled locally by Thaco. It's a flow of showing a \"model\" with the first few cars and then mass-producing what follows at a domestic factory. The biggest aim of this contract can be said to be becoming able to finish the heavy-industry mass of a railcar domestically.<\/p>\n
Ho Chi Minh City's urban rail plan grew a notch larger when the city's administrative area expanded in 2025. The vision raises figures of 27 lines and a total length of 1,024 km. Covering routes of this length entirely by importing finished vehicles isn't realistic in terms of cost or delivery time. Holding a structure that can build cars domestically pulls the initiative in procurement to the home side.<\/p>\n
Phan Cong Bang, head of the city's urban rail management authority, states that raising the proportion of domestic parts and \"making the technology our own\" is the central goal. It's not merely a matter of obtaining cars cheaply; the aim of rooting the know-how of design, manufacturing, and maintenance domestically shows through. Keep relying on imports, and you're at the mercy of overseas makers' circumstances with every expansion or update. Having manufacturing capacity here lets the city advance the network expansion, which will continue for decades, at its own pace\u2014that calculation is at work.<\/p>\n
Checking the current state, the operating route stays at about 20 km. The Ben Thanh\u2013Suoi Tien line (Line 1), which opened in December 2024, has only just begun running as Vietnam's first urban rail. From the final form of 1,024 km, it can be said to be still standing at the entrance. That's precisely why firmly establishing the foundation of the car-building side at an early stage carries great meaning.<\/p>\n
The complex that manufactures the cars is planned at a scale of 320 hectares. The factory's vision handles not only metro cars but also locomotives, tunnel boring machines, bridge girders, tunnel components, and railway sleepers. A feature is aiming for a base that can supply railway infrastructure as a whole.<\/p>\n