The plant will produce dialysis treatment equipment and is the Japanese firm’s second facility in Vietnam.

Japanese medical equipment producer Nipro is expanding its operations in Vietnam with a new factory worth $300 million in Ho Chi Minh City, the Nikkei Asian Review reported.

The factory will produce catheters, blood tubing and other dialysis equipment that will be sold mainly in Japan and Southeast Asia.

The paper reported that Nipro had relied on a Thai subsidiary to produce these products before deciding to increase production as the need for dialysis treatment continues to grow.

Construction of the plant kicked off in Ho Chi Minh City’s Saigon Hi-tech Park this month.

An initial investment capital of $190 million will be used to build the plant over the next three years. Another $110 million will be poured into the plant through 2025 to raise capacity.

The plant’s first products are expected to roll off the line in October 2018.

Nipro is the world’s second largest provider of dialyzers, which filter the blood of patients with kidney diseases.

In 2012, the company invested $250 million into a medical equipment factory in the northern city of Hai Phong, which represented its first overseas production line. The factory began producing transfusion bags, injection tubes and pharmaceutical tablets last year.