Tiếng Việt
中文 (中国)
An Nghiep Industrial Park sits at the junction of National Highway 1A and National Highway 60, just outside the former Soc Trang city centre. It is the oldest industrial park in the area and one of the closest to full occupancy. That changes the flooring question entirely. In An Nghiep, the question is rarely “what floor should a brand new factory have”. It is usually: the plant is already running, the concrete is worn, joints have cracked, seasonal damp has crept in — how do you refurbish the floor zone by zone without stopping the whole line. This article starts from that reality: the park’s industries, the floor each industry group needs, and how to choose a coating system by functional zone inside the plant.
Administrative note: since 01/07/2025, the former Soc Trang province has been merged into the new Can Tho City. In this article, “former Soc Trang” is only a familiar geographic name so readers can recognise the park; the current administrative unit is Can Tho City. The park name “An Nghiep” is kept as is, because that is the name investors and contractors still use when searching.
This article discusses floor needs of plants in the park. It does not claim that Kadier has carried out work in An Nghiep or served any specific company there. Every system suggestion below is a direction to consider; the exact floor requirement of each plant must still be confirmed by an on-site survey.
An Nghiep through the lens of flooring: an old park, nearly full, retrofit first
An Nghiep covers 243 hectares in An Hiep commune, Phu Tan commune (former Chau Thanh district) and Ward 7 of the former Soc Trang city, and has been in operation since 2005. According to figures published up to 2023, the park had attracted 64 projects with total registered capital of VND 8,771 billion, including 7 foreign-invested projects, and had filled around 97% of its leasable land. In plain terms, there is almost no vacant land left; most floor demand comes from plants that have been operating for years, not from new builds.
That distinction matters. In a new plant, you choose a floor from drawings, on fresh concrete. In an older An Nghiep plant, the floor has already carried years of traffic: forklifts running the same aisles, wet zones washed down every day, joints cracked, surfaces worn unevenly. Coating over such a floor without a survey only hides the surface for a short while; the coating will fail exactly where the concrete is weakest underneath. So refurbishment in An Nghiep must start with a survey and only then move to system selection — the process section at the end explains this order in detail.
The park’s location also creates a floor zone of its own: warehousing and logistics. An Nghiep sits at the QL1A × QL60 crossroads, connected to the Nam Song Hau road and Dai Ngai port; according to park summaries, it is about 4 km from the former Soc Trang city centre, about 20 km from Dai Ngai port, about 58 km from Can Tho port and about 65 km from Can Tho airport. Plants here move goods by road and inland waterway, so finished-goods warehouses, forklift aisles and loading areas carry repeated daily traffic — a floor zone that deserves its own specification, separate from production floors.
One more local factor belongs in every survey: the park’s terrain is low and relatively flat, at roughly 0.4–1.5 m elevation, in a tropical monsoon climate with a rainy season from May to October and average humidity around 83%. In low, humid ground, slab moisture and drainage are mandatory survey items before any epoxy coating, especially in wet zones and near doorways where seasonal rain can drive in.
Common industries and floor types in An Nghiep
The park’s investment profile centres on agricultural and aquatic product processing, consumer goods, textiles, garments, leather goods and plastics, livestock and aquaculture feed production, mechanical engineering, machinery assembly, electrical products, electronics and telecommunications, plus construction materials and high-tech manufacturing. Each group poses a different floor problem, as set out below.
Agricultural and seafood processing: wet zones, salt, grease, daily washdown
This is the industry group most tied to the raw-material region around former Soc Trang: rice, farm produce and seafood brought into the park for preparation, processing and packing for export. Its floors live in water: wet intake areas, preparation zones washed down daily, and drier packing areas and finished-goods stores that still face end-of-shift cleaning. Salt water, grease and cleaning agents attack the surface every day, so floors need to be seamless, with no joints trapping dirt, slip-resistant in wet zones, and resistant to repeated washdown. Zoning is mandatory: wet, dry and transition zones cannot share one floor specification, because their wetness and slipperiness differ sharply. Where a flat, seamless surface is the priority, the LevelFlow self-levelling system is commonly considered; where a water-based, low-odour option is needed to shorten zone downtime, the AquaBase water-based, low-VOC system is the reference point.
Livestock and aquaculture feed: dust, abrasion, repeated forklift traffic
Feed production poses the opposite problem to wet processing: dust. Powder, meal and additives fall onto the floor, lodge in joints and cracks, and are then ground in by forklifts running the same routes. Floors here should resist dust build-up, be easy to dry-clean, withstand even abrasion and carry forklift traffic moving raw materials and finished goods. Milling, mixing and bagging areas are the dustiest and should be separated from finished-goods stores and forklift aisles, since their dust and load levels differ. For forklift aisles and dry stores inside the same plant, the RollCoat roller system with painted traffic lines is usually the practical choice: it can be applied zone by zone, with lane markings laid directly onto the new floor.
Garments, leather goods, plastics and consumer goods: medium loads, cleanliness and brightness as floor conditions
Textiles, garments, leather goods and plastics carry medium loads, but cleanliness is their defining floor condition: fabric dust, fibres and plastic trimmings fall onto the floor, collect in joints and corners, and spread on shoes and wheels to other areas. Floors for this group should be seamless, low-dust, easy to clean and bright enough that dust and dropped goods are easy to spot. Cutting, sewing and inspection areas need flat, bright floors; raw-material and finished-goods stores need floors that take trolleys and light forklifts. Painted floor markings — walkways, waiting-goods areas, inspection zones — help the plant keep floor discipline without fixed partitions.
Mechanical, electronics and supporting industries: heavy loads, oil, and static control only where required
Mechanical engineering, machinery assembly, electrical products and electronics carry the heaviest loads in the park: fixed machinery creating point loads, forklifts moving moulds and machine assemblies, oil leaks in maintenance areas. Floors here need load resistance, oil resistance and joints that do not crack under repeated loading. Static control, by contrast, applies only to the zones that actually require it — electronics, testing and component packing areas where a survey confirms an anti-static requirement — with the StatGuard system used for those zones only, never spread across the whole plant. Blanket anti-static coverage where it is not needed only adds cost and complicates later maintenance.
Warehousing and logistics at the QL1A × QL60 junction: the forklift aisle as its own zone
Thanks to the highway junction, many An Nghiep plants double as transfer warehouses: goods from Dai Ngai port and neighbouring provinces arrive here and fan out again. Forklift aisles, loading areas and high-bay stores wear along a few fixed routes, so floor wear concentrates in stripes along the aisles rather than evenly across the slab. The floor answer is to reinforce exactly those traffic stripes, paint forklift and pedestrian lanes, and provide a buffer zone at warehouse doors where vehicles enter and rain can drive in. Refurbishing only the traffic stripes and aisles first, rather than recoating the entire warehouse in one go, cuts warehouse downtime substantially.
System selection by functional zone
The table below is a starting direction, not a technical specification. The final system for each zone must be fixed after a survey of the slab, loads and wetness.
| Functional zone | Main floor requirement | System to consider |
|---|---|---|
| Wet agro and seafood processing | Seamless, slip-resistant, washdown-resistant | LevelFlow; AquaBase where low odour is needed |
| Dry packing and inspection | Flat, seamless, easy to clean | LevelFlow |
| Feed production | Low dust build-up, abrasion-resistant, forklift traffic | RollCoat |
| Garment, leather, plastics, consumer goods | Bright, low-dust, marked zones | RollCoat |
| Mechanical, assembly, heavy stores | Load-bearing, oil-resistant, marked forklift aisles | RollCoat; reinforce traffic stripes |
| Electronics zones with a static requirement | Static control in the required zone only | StatGuard, required zones only |
| Zones needing low-odour application | Water-based, low VOC | AquaBase |
Refurbishing an old floor in An Nghiep: survey first, coat second
For a running plant in a nearly full park, the order of work matters more than the coating itself. A practical sequence has five steps. First, survey the existing floor: measure slab moisture, record cracks, blistering, failed joints and forklift wear stripes, and check drainage and points where rain drives in. In low, humid ground like An Nghiep, skipping moisture measurement is the most common cause of peeling after refurbishment. Second, zone the plant by wetness, load and dust as in the table above, instead of coating the whole plant uniformly. Third, prepare the slab: repair joints, fill cracks, grind for adhesion and treat damp spots before coating; paint does not fix weak concrete underneath. Fourth, coat zone by zone so the plant keeps running elsewhere, starting with wet zones and traffic stripes. Fifth, hand over with cleaning and periodic inspection guidance: wet zones checked for slip resistance after each deep clean, forklift aisles checked for wear stripes each quarter.
One scheduling note is specific to a nearly full park: coating work must fit the plant’s production and shipping calendar, because warehouses and forklift aisles in An Nghiep feed the QL1A × QL60 routes and Dai Ngai port. Coating a warehouse during a peak shipping period creates a bottleneck; coating one traffic stripe at a time during a quiet period lets the plant keep running almost without interruption.
What recoating cannot fix
Epoxy is a surface coating, not a structure. Three cases cannot be solved by recoating and need different treatment first: first, structurally failed concrete — through-cracks, settlement, voids underneath — which must be structurally repaired before coating; second, rising damp from below the slab without a damp-proof measure, which will lift the coating again at exactly the damp spots; third, wrong drainage falls that leave standing water in wet zones, which no anti-slip coating can replace. Spotting these three cases at the survey stage avoids an expensive recoat that leaves the floor still failing.
Frequently asked questions
Can a running plant refurbish its epoxy floor?
Yes, if the work is done zone by zone rather than across the whole plant at once. The work zone is separated, the remaining zones keep operating, and wet zones and forklift wear stripes should be done first because they deteriorate fastest.
Why is An Nghiep different from a newly built park?
Because the park is around 97% full and has operated since 2005, its floors are mostly old floors that have carried traffic for years. The job is therefore survey, joint and crack repair, damp treatment and then coating — not choosing a floor on fresh concrete.
Which system suits a wet seafood processing zone?
The direction to consider is a seamless, slip-resistant, washdown-resistant system, with wet and dry zones specified separately. A self-levelling system is commonly considered where flatness and seamlessness matter most; a water-based system is considered where low odour is needed. The exact requirement still has to be confirmed by survey.
Do garment and electronics plants need anti-static floors throughout?
No. Only electronics, testing and component packing zones where a survey confirms a requirement need static control. Blanket coverage of the whole plant adds cost and complicates maintenance.
What logistics advantage in An Nghiep affects warehouse floors?
The park sits at the QL1A × QL60 junction near Dai Ngai port, so warehouses and forklift aisles carry repeated traffic along fixed routes. Warehouse floors therefore need reinforcement on exactly those traffic stripes, plus painted lane separation, rather than an even recoat of the whole warehouse.
For the wider picture, see the cluster overview: Epoxy Flooring for the Hau Giang and Soc Trang Industrial Park Cluster — that article covers the whole southern cluster of the new Can Tho City, while this article goes deep on An Nghiep alone.
