A man looks at a scale model of Boeing's 787 dreamliner at their booth at the Singapore Air Show in Singapore February 19, 2008. (Photo: Reuters)

More than 50 companies, including defence, pharmaceutical and tech firms, will participate in the mission organised by the US-ASEAN Business Council, an industry body, according to a list seen by Reuters.

"This is the biggest-ever mission in Vietnam," said Vu Tu Thanh, the US-ASEAN Business Council's representative in the country, noting that the body had been organising these events for three decades.

Thanh said some companies were interested in Vietnam as a manufacturing hub and in providing services to increasingly wealthy consumers at a time when economic growth reached more than 8% last year.

The majority of the companies joining the business mission already have a business or manufacturing presence in Vietnam, including Apple and Coca-Cola, Thanh said, with some planning to expand it.

The mission will also include semiconductors companies, pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, financial firms Visa, and Citibank, internet and cloud companies Meta and Amazon Web Services, the list showed.