VietNamNet Bridge – Over a year after being put up for sale, the plant of the thin-film solar power panel project in HCMC’s outlying district of Cu Chi of First Solar Group is still unsold due to troublesome legal procedures.

The plant located in Dong Nam Industrial Park in Cu Chi has caught a great deal of attention from a number of foreign investors but it is yet to be transferred to another partner due to legal procedures relating to land and factory, Tran Viet Ha, investment director of the HCMC Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), said.

Hepza now is seeking ways to remove the difficulties but Ha doesn’t know when the problem will be settled to facilitate the plant transfer. Despite this, Ha told the Daily that Hepza was looking to choose large investors specializing in high technology production and hi-tech products as the new owners for the plant.

First Solar last year appointed real estate service provider Cushman & Wakefield as the exclusive agent to seek buyers for part or the whole of the 113,000 square-meter facility. The group already completed construction of the factory for making solar power panels and wants to transfer the work given oversupply in the world’s solar market.

A source from Cushman & Wakefield later revealed that multiple potential investors had sought information to buy the plant partly or wholly but the facility has yet to find buyers up until now.

First Solar started construction of the plant with total registered capital of up to US$1.2 billion in March 2011. The U.S. group decided to put on hold the execution of the plant due to supply-demand imbalances in global markets in November 2011 and then announced to sell the whole facility in July 2012.

Source: SGT