The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) should further clarify weaknesses and bottlenecks in the current development of industries so as to have a better plan on industrial restructuring, many insiders said at a workshop in Hanoi on May 31.

The event, held by the MoIT and the European Trade Policy and Investment Support Project (MUTRAP), aimed to seek feedback on a draft plan on Vietnam’s industrial restructuring for 2017-2020.

Le Tien Truong, General Director of the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group, said many data on the textile and garment industry in the draft are incorrect such as labour productivity, added value or import. Therefore, the plan’s reliability remains modest and it needs overhauling.

The plan hasn’t mapped out an industrial restructuring process, he noted, elaborating that the plan says labour productivity must be raised by 5 percent to improve competitiveness but it is simply a target. The plan does not mention any processes to realise that target.

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

To promote textile-garment productivity, the key solution is to update technology and equipment. If the plan names improving manpower management and training the key solution, it will be a wrong direction, Truong said.

Nguyen Tue Anh, Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said the MoIT’s plan needs to further 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 is necessary to have a clearer plan which must point out major bottlenecks and detail restructuring processes in order to focus resources on right areas, thus creating more substantive improvements.

The MoIT will gather more opinions to fine-tune the draft plan, he added.

Industrial production value 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 percent of the country’s GDP, according to the MoIT.

In recent years, electronics, textile-garment and footwear have become key exports, accounting for over 60 percent of the country’s total export revenue.

However, MoIT Deputy Minister Cao Quoc Hung said, the country still ranks 101st among 143 countries in terms of the per capita added value in processing and manufacturing industries. Its industrial labour productivity is still outpaced by developed nations and other countries in the region. This is a worrying problem when Vietnam is now just in the initial stage of industrialisation.

Therefore, the draft plan on industrial restructuring has been built to promote substantive industrial restructuring, he noted.

VNA