Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will invest $500 million in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, to set up a packaging and testing facility.

The move comes one year after the South Korean company invested $7 billion to build a memory-chip plant in the Xi'an Hi-tech Industry Development Zone.

On Thursday, the company signed an agreement with the Xi'an hi-tech development zone, one of the largest industrial zones in central and western China, for the $500 million project.