Hanoi (VNA) – According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade,currently many industrial firms of Vietnam have not mastered the coretechnology, and they mainly join sections of low technological contents andadded values.

Industry is taken as one of the important spearhead sector that cancontribute to the economic growth. Yet, over the recent past, the developmentof many sectors like engineering, automobile and even support industry stillfail to catch up with the common development of many countries in the region.

This is also a main content discussed by the Ministry of Industry andTrade in a recent Hanoi meeting on the industrial development

A report by the Ministry of Industry and Trade pointed out majorshortcomings in industry, especially the low production efficiency in terms ofadded value and export. Besides, most of the values created are from foreigndirected investment (FDI) firms and Vietnam’s exports still largely depend onimported materials.

A report also showed that the FDI sector recorded a trade surplus of18.6 billion USD in the first half of last year and it always occupied morethan 70 percent of Vietnam’s total export revenue.

According to Truong Thanh Hoai, Director of the Industry Department,there are only nearly 80,000 firms in the processing and manufacturing sector.Besides, their financial and technological capacity is very limited, and theyhave not mastered the core technology while mainly joining the segments of lowcontents of technology and added value. As a result, they have not been able todevelop their trademarks.

Realities are showing the starting point of Vietnam’s industry is lowwhile the policies on industrial development in the recent past are of lowquality, stretched and unstable. It is more important that industrial groups ofregional and international scales in the processing and manufacturing sectorare still out of sight.

Also in the time under review, the volume of imported completely builtautomobiles (from 5 to 16 seats) increased by 400 percent compared to the sameperiod a year earllier and this, in Director of the Import-Export Department ofthe Ministry of Industry and Trade Phan Van Chinh’s idea, is veryattention-worthy for concerted policies to be built so as to develop thedomestic automobile industry.

One of the requirements in increasing the export value, Chinh said, isthe origin, the rate of localisation of the products and the databases of theindustries.

Meanwhile, Deputy Director of the Trade Protection Department Pham ChauGiang said more than 95 percent of the incidents related to trade protectionare products of the processing and manufacturing industry like iron, steel andaluminum.

However, the perception of domestic enterprises and their ability inresponding to trade protection measures are lower than those of FDI firms.

In face of this, Minister Anh asked departments to assess the currentpolicies and their impact so as to work out proposals and to join hands withrelevant authorities to basically and best solve trade problems.

They also need to review and reassess the implementation of thepolicies in the recent past so as to well utilise the chances created by theinternational economic integration.

According to Hoai, the Industry Department is collaborating withministries and sectors to build policies and solutions to develop a number ofpriority industries of considerable development potential and chances likeautomobile, garment, leather, electronics, minerals and support industries. Atthe same time, development orientations and policies are being built inaccordance with the potential and advantages of localities.

The official also asked for State support to capable small- andmedium-sized enterprises in becoming reliable production partners of globalproduction chains. Besides, he also touched upon the building of policies tosupport selectively a number of firms of considerable potential to becomegroups of regional and international groups, with special attention to theprotection of the domestic markets and expansion of the international one./.