Vietnam to master mold manufacturing technology

A stepping stone for support industry development

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), the value of the mold and precision engineering industry in Vietnam is now estimated at over US$1 billion each year. Particularly, with an annual growth rate of 18 percent, the industry is attracting the attention of many domestic and foreign businesses.

Thaco Industries pays special attention to researching and mastering mold manufacturing technology - photo: Thaco Industries

Notably, Vietnamese enterprises make only 8.5 percent of plastic injection molds, while the rest are metal stamping molds. Therefore, there is a high demand for molds in various industries, such as plastics, mechanical engineering, machinery parts and components, presenting a significant opportunity for domestic firms to enhance their capacity to join the global supply chain.

In the context of the mold technique being considered a core engineering industry, the foundation of the manufacturing industry, the development and training of experts is extremely important. Furthermore, enhancing mold engineering capability helps optimize product machining quality for visual or tactile evaluation criteria on all plastic processing, pressure stamping or precision machining products, which can contribute a lot to the industrial manufacturing sector of Vietnam, especially the production of hardware for electronic devices used in motorbike and car manufacturing industry.

Increased role in supply chain

According to the Vietnam Industry Agency (VIA) under the MoIT, since 2020, the ministry has cooperated with Samsung Vietnam to implement practical and effective programs, contributing to increasing the capacity of support industries in Vietnam.

In 2023, the Industrial Development Support Center (IDC) of the VIA cooperated with the Korea Institute of Technology to lead the project “Supporting training to improve the design and processing skills of molds using CAD/CAM/CAE-CNC technology and Testing for technicians in the field of supporting industry and processing and manufacturing industry” within the framework of the National Development Program in 2023 with three training courses. The program is expected to bring many practical values, contributing to improving molding human resources, increasing access to global production chains for Vietnamese supporting industry enterprises.

In 2024, the VIA will continue to support businesses in the fields of electronics and automobiles with technical improvement; train human resources and promote technological exchange through the Vietnam - Korea Technology Consultancy and Solution Center (VITASK), at the same time discussing the expansion of the project in phase 2 (from 2024 - 2028). It will also propose human resource training, especially skills in the six source technologies (welding, casting, molding, plastic processing, heat treatment, and mold surface treatment), as well as a number of new technologies that are of interest today (chip manufacturing, semiconductors, automation, smart factories, and more).