The central Thanh Hoa province authority has issued license to four companies from Japan, China and Republic of Korea to establish factories involving a total outlay of $11.8 million.

Chinese International Shanghai-MD will be the largest investor with an outlay of $4.3 million in building a chrome ore processing factory.

The Japanese Nomura Trading has planned to go for an investment of $3 million into a garment and textile factory which is expected to generate jobs for almost 2,000 workers.

The bulk of the produce of the wholly foreign-invested factories' products will be exported.

Thanh Hoa has till now been able to attract $700 million worth of foreign-direct investment (FDI) from 14 FDI enterprises.

This has helped in a 12 percent inflow into the province's budget, making it one of the leading FDI-attracting provinces and cities of the country.