It is very necessary to support Vietnamese mechanical enterprises to connect to the global supply chain and improve their production and business capacity.

Experts also believe that the mechanical industry needs new attractive incentives to make better use of FDI inflows for economic development, create linkages with domestic enterprises and increase added value for the domestic economic sector.

The mechanical industry is a more difficult field to start a business than other industries, so the State needs to nurture even “sponsor” for mechanical enterprises, especially when they have “bravely” chosen this difficult field.

That has to be done early while they are in their infancy. If this business group together with the equitized enterprise block are interested in promoting, we hope to have many inventions and achievements in the future mechanical field.

Mechanical enterprises that are attached to and passionate about the profession actively propose or are assigned scientific research projects by the State to have many high-tech, environmentally friendly products put into service for industrial production as well as agricultural production is not much.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Vietnam currently has about 25,000 mechanical enterprises, accounting for 30% of processing and manufacturing enterprises. However, the enterprises in this industry are mainly small in scale, with low competitiveness and difficulty in competing with imported products.

Therefore, the mechanical engineering market share in the domestic market still largely belongs to foreign enterprises. Mechanical products, human resources… are inferior to other countries in the region. The connection between Vietnamese mechanical enterprises is still limited; market-making factors, regional linkages, human resources… are still weak.

Not only that, mechanical enterprises in Vietnam also face many challenges in improving technology, catching up with trends, improving labor skills, corporate skills, and improving infrastructure and quality facilities… to be able to join the global supply chain. This will cause many businesses to lose development opportunities when FDI “waves” into Vietnam.

In the development orientation, Vietnam’s mechanical industry not only aims to meet the needs of the domestic market, but also aims to promote exports. But will this “dream” come true when the products of Vietnam’s mechanical industry currently have low competitiveness, products with high technology content bearing “Vietnamese brands” are not many?

Deputy Director of the Department of Industry (Ministry of Industry and Trade) Pham Tuan Anh assessed that the mechanical industry is facing stiff competition with imported products. Market expansion still faces many difficulties due to lack of market information and weak domestic competitiveness.

Commenting on the competitiveness of the mechanical industry in the market, Mr. Tran Van Tuan, General Director of Vietnam Steel Structures and Lifting Equipment Joint Stock Company (Vinalift) said that businesses need to create a market by ways to improve product quality, create products with competitive prices, focus on marketing (which is weak for Vietnamese mechanical enterprises) to introduce products.

Along with that, develop design, manufacturing and management standards in accordance with international and regional standards. In addition, businesses should choose a few products with intensive research and production, strengthen mutual cooperation to avoid spreading investment.

In the coming time, Vietnam will implement many important projects with a large total investment, such as the electricity planning period 2021 – 2030, high-speed railway, Long Thanh international airport, railway routes inner city, traffic works, irrigation, hydropower, oil and gas, marine economy, shipbuilding, automobile, motorcycle, healthcare, agriculture… This is a great opportunity for the mechanical industry to take advantage of the benefits. Therefore, combining 4.0 technology application into production.

On the other hand, Vietnam’s participation in many free trade agreements will help domestic enterprises have more advantages when exporting to other markets, and at the same time attract foreign investment into Vietnam. This is considered an opportunity for domestic mechanical enterprises to improve production capacity.

“However, in order to take advantage of this opportunity, businesses need to urgently have a detailed plan to link in the production and supply of equipment and machinery manufactured by Vietnamese enterprises, soon forming linkage clusters. Connecting businesses to invest in expanding production to meet new requirements”, emphasized Mr. Dao Phan Long, Chairman of the Vietnam Mechanical Association.

Source: Petrotimes