At a meeting held by the Ministry of Finance on Friday, the vice chairman of Bac Ninh province, Mr. Nguyen Luong Thanh, said in the first half of the year, the province earned VND6.7 trillion ($319 million), or 50% of its estimate.

The official said that Bac Ninh was able to fulfill its budget revenue plan thanks to contributions of foreign firms, mainly Samsung.

In the first half of the year, this company paid taxes of VND974 billion ($46.3 million). At the same time, all non-state enterprises paid a total of VND300 billion ($15 million) of taxes, or 33% of the plan.

"Without foreign enterprises, Bac Ninh’s budget would face many difficulties," Thanh said.

Officially opened in Bac Ninh in 2009, Samsung is now the largest investor in the province with $3.5 billion in the high-tech complex manufacturing electronic components.

In the last two years this firm paid taxes worth over VND1 trillion/year. Last year its export turnover reached nearly $24 billion, equivalent to 18% of Vietnam’s total exports.

Recently, Bac Ninh provided the company an investment certificate for the $1 billion screen project of Samsung Display.

Samsung’s new plant will have a capacity of 4 million products a month, with revenue in the first year (2015) expected to be $1.5 billion and $6 billion in 2020.