HANOI (Reuters) -South Korea's Samsung Display Co plans to invest $1.8 billion for a factory in northern Vietnam to produce OLED displays for automobiles and technology equipment, the Southeast Asian country said on Sunday.

The new facility for the manufacture of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays will be located in Yen Phong industrial park in Bac Ninh province east of Hanoi and close to an existing Samsung Electronics plant, the government said in a statement released after the meeting between Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Choi Joo Ho, the General Director of Samsung group in Vietnam.

Samsung Display is a unit of Samsung Electronics, the flagship of the Samsung group.

Bac Ninh authorities and Samsung Display also signed on Sunday a memorandum of understanding of the project, local media reported, adding the investment would raise the Samsung group's total investment in Bac Ninh to $8.3 billion from the current $6.5 billion.

The Samsung group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vietnam has over the last decade emerged as one of the most attractive production hubs for electronics companies.

According to Choi, the Samsung group has established six manufacturing plants, one research and development centre, and one sales entity in Vietnam, with a cumulative investment of $22.4 billion.

(Reporting by Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Muralikumar Anantharaman)