Asia Tech Wire (May 21) -- The Vietnamese government has sent letters to a number of manufacturing companies, including Apple's Taiwanese supplier Foxconn, asking for voluntary reductions in electricity use, according to Reuters.

The authorities asked the world's largest iPhone assembler to reduce electricity consumption by 30% at its assembly plants in northern Vietnam, the report said, citing sources.

The sources said the request was precautionary in nature to avoid a repeat of last summer's power shortages, and that the request to Foxconn was an encouragement rather than a requirement, and did not have an impact on production.

In May and June last year, a heat wave triggered power shortages and affected industrial production in northern Vietnam. According to the World Bank's preliminary estimates, the incident resulted in a loss of output of $1.4 billion, equivalent to 0.3% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh promised foreign investors in March this year that there would be no repeat of the power shortages, and the government has asked coal power plants to defer maintenance to meet peak hour demand.