Positive transformation: Supporting industries take on new responsibility

To date, about 240 Vietnamese enterprises have participated in Samsung’s supply network; one enterprise has also engaged in production and assembly of high-end cars of BMW Group (Germany) right in Vietnam.

Vietnam is becoming the destination of a series of upstream enterprises in the supply chains of high-tech industries and semiconductor chips

Thanks to economic and political advantages as well as a suitable location, Vietnam is becoming the destination of a series of upstream enterprises in the supply chains of high-tech industries and semiconductor chips... However, experts believe that, in order to participate more deeply in the global supply chain, the Vietnamese supporting industry sector needs to develop more extensively and intensively.

For example, the domestic supporting industry sector is still in the very low value-added segment in the chain, mainly focusing on a number of fields, such as textiles, footwear, wood processing and mechanics, while supporting industry products of high technology content, sophistication and complexity are still held by FDI enterprises.

Furthermore, supporting industry enterprises have not paid appropriate attention to research and development; and still lack human resources for supporting industries...

According to Dr. Kieu Xuan Thuc, Rector of Hanoi University of Industry, currently the number of highly skilled workers in supporting industries is very limited compared to actual demand.

“To solve the human resource problem for the supporting industry sector, a connection is needed between training institutions, enterprises and society. It is necessary to build incentive mechanisms to link vocational training with the labor market,” Dr. Kieu Xuan Thuc said.

Currently, domestic supporting industry enterprises are mostly small and medium in size, which are short of capital and technology, and even need support in trade promotion and sales... Therefore, to improve the capacity of supporting industries, Vice Chairman of the Hanoi Supporting Industry Business Association (HANSIBA) Nguyen Van said that supporting industry enterprises are expecting a lot of support from mechanisms, policies and assistance from state management agencies.

Satisfied with the business investment environment in Vietnam, Nguyen Quoc Cuong, Director of Hanel Plastics Joint Stock Company, believes that more and more large corporations will come to help Vietnamese supporting industry enterprises. However, he also recommends that enterprises themselves must improve their technological level and readiness to produce products of high added value, thereby maintaining their stable positions in supply chains.

“The readiness level of an enterprise is its reputation and ability to meet partners’ requirements. For example, when customers only provide product samples and their ideas, a supporting industry enterprise can immediately respond by offering them product designs and manufacturing, even with extremely complex sets of components,” Cuong explained.