Vietnam prepares draft plan to restructure industry

02 Jun '17

3 min read

Vietnam government has prepared a draft plan on the country’s industrial restructuring during 2017-2020, which needs to be fine tuned, according to experts. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) should clarify weaknesses and bottlenecks in the industrial sector to come out with a better plan on industrial restructuring, they said at a workshop.

The workshop in Hanoi was organised by the MoIT and the European Trade Policy and Investment Support Project (MUTRAP) to get feedback on the draft plan on Vietnam’s industrial restructuring for 2017-2020, according to a Vietnamese news agency report.

Industrial production in Vietnam has surged by nearly 3.5 times from 350 trillion VND (15.4 billion USD) to 1,170 trillion VND (51.5 billion USD) over the last 10 years. It makes up about 31-32 per cent of the country’s GDP, according to the MoIT. Electronics, textile-garment and footwear have become the key export items, accounting for over 60 per cent of the country’s total export revenue.

MoIT deputy minister Cao Quoc Hung said the country still ranked 101st among 143 countries in terms of per capita added value in processing and manufacturing industries. Its industrial labour productivity was outpaced by developed nations and other countries in the region. Therefore, a restructuring plan has been prepared for industrial restructuring, the report said.

Speakig about the plan, Le Tien Truong, general director of the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group, said parts of data in the draft on the textile and garment industry, such as labour productivity, added value and import were incorrect. Therefore, the plan’s reliability remained modest and needed revision.

Besides, the plan had not laid any industrial restructuring process, he noted, elaborating that the plan said labour productivity must be raised by five per cent to improve competitiveness but did not mention any processes to realise that target, the report said.

Vietnam ranks fifth among the countries with highest labour productivity in fibre and textile production. It follows China in labour productivity in garment manufacturing.

To promote textile-garment productivity, the key solution was updating technology and equipment. If the plan named improving manpower management and training the key solution, it would be a wrong direction, Truong said.

Nguyen Tue Anh, deputy director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said the MoIT’s plan needed to clarify the bottlenecks and their causes in the development of industries so as to devise effective solutions.

Director General of the MoIT’s Planning Department Duong Duy Hung admitted that it was necessary to have a clearer plan which must point out major bottlenecks and detail restructuring processes in order to focus resources on right areas for substantive improvements. The MoIT would gather more opinions to fine-tune the draft plan. (SV)

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