Ba Ria - Vung Tau province is striving to become the national centre of supporting industries. Accordingly, the province focuses on attracting Japanese investors to develop local auxiliary industries. This is considered the right direction, when the province’s experience, technology and human resources for this sector are quite limited. Thus, it indeed needs the support and cooperation of leading experienced countries in this field.
Early in 2011, the government adopted the Supporting Industry Development Policy and Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Hai Phong were chosen to play central roles in supporting industry development for the nation. This is the right direction with the current background of outsourcing, assembling and manufacturing equipment and components for global production chains.
In February 2012, the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province approved the Supporting Industry Development Plan to 2020, with consideration towards 2025. Accordingly, supporting industries will be the foundation for general industrial development, become a link in multinational corporations’ production networks, a part of the production networks of the southern key economic zone, of the country and the region. In order to implement the plan ratified in August 2012, the provincial government issued decisions on the enforcement of the Supporting Industry Development Programme in the 2013 - 2015 phase, with focus given to three key sectors: Engineering and manufacturing, electrics and electronics, and chemicals.
Pertaining to the engineering - manufacturing sector, the province strives to increase the proportion of this sector within the overall supporting industrial production value to 70 per cent by 2015. The proportion will be then gradually be lowered to 60 per cent by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2025. As regards the electrical and electronics sector SI, the province tries to raise its proportion of the overall supporting industrial production value to 12 per cent by 2015 and then quickly rise to 24 per cent by 2020 and 34 per cent by 2025. With respect to chemical industry, the province aims to pick up its contribution to the overall supporting industry production value to 20 per cent by 2015 and 15 per cent in later periods.
To realise these goals, Ba Ria - Vung Tau will accelerate investment promotion activities in target countries with strong supporting industry development in East Asia and ASEAN. Japan will always be the destination of top priority. Specifically, the province has organised many investment promotion missions to Japan to attract supporting industry investors and has received many Japanese business delegations arriving the province to explore investment opportunities. Initial results help increase the attention of provincial leaders and the consensus of all agencies concerning supporting industry development. Some connections have been shaped. Specifically, the province signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation with Forval Group to promote the image of Ba Ria-Vung Tau in Japan; signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between the Department of Industry and Trade of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Kawasaki City, Japan to build the bilateral economic cooperation relationship, promote investment and trade exchanges, and strengthen connectivity between infrastructure developers with Japanese investors. The province also studied the successful models of Japanese Industrial Parks in Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore.
The Department of Trade and Industry has been assigned to be the lead coordinator for the province to contact the Japanese side and continue to work on supporting industry investment attraction. The department has collaborated with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to complete the scheme for the construction of industrial parks for mechanical engineering in the province to attract supporting industry projects. This scheme has been submitted to the Central Government for approval. The province has also trained 300 out of the target 1,000 technical workers for Japanese investors.
However, according to Director of the Department of Industry and Trade Tran Thi Huong, the presence of Japanese investors will give a boost to supporting industries thanks to their experience, technology and management. In the long term, though, domestic enterprises must be involved in supporting industries and will gradually replace foreigners.
She said, to develop supporting industries, Ba Ria - Vung Tau must focus its leading supporting industries to attract investment, while having a comprehensive supporting industry development programme with specific incentives to serve long-term development. Besides, the province also needs to have support policies for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to access capital sources, investment experience and skills for supporting industry development.
Thien Tan
Vietnamese
