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First National Seminar on SI Action Plan
 

On 5-Sep 2008, in Hanoi, VCCI and JETRO co-hosted the First National Seminar on Action Plan for Developing Supporting Industries in VN. Its purpose was to launch the work of designing concrete action plans for supporting industry promotion, which would implement the SI master plan approved in 2007,  through bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and Japan. The seminar was opened by VCCI Chairman Vu Tien Loc and Japanese Ambassador Mitsuo Sakaba. Key note speakers were MOIT Minister Vu Huy Hoang, VDF co-leader Kenichi Ohno, and Toyota VN President Nobuhiko Murakami. Three panel disccussions followed to cover human resources, FDI role, and finance and firm consultancy. The Japanese side presented bilateral vision and action plan proposals, showed concrete data to highlight competitiveness issues. VDF is supporting this bilateral effort through academic inputs and other assistance. 

VDF assistance for supporting industry promotion

Since Spring 2008, VDF has worked closely with Japanese embassy, VCCI, JETRO, JICA and other related bodies to formulate a new VN-Japan project to strengthen VN's supporting industries. VDF has provided initial ideas, analysis and international experience, drafting of key documents, and logistic and translation support. This project will build bilateral strategic partnership for monozukuri (skilled manufacturing) with special emphasis on supporting industries (parts and components). It will be implemented under the VN-JP Joint Initiative Phase 3. Much of the work remains preparatory and confidential at present. The VCCI-JETRO conference will officially launch this project in early September.

Symposium on education at Aichi Univ. of Education

From 4th to 6th July 2008, Ms. Nguyen Thi Xuan Thuy, a VDF research participated in an international symposium on technological education at Aichi Universities of Education, Japan. The symposium included panel sessions, oral sessions, and poster sessions. Ms. Thuy presented at an oral session, introduced Vietnam's education and TVET system, then proposed measures to strengthen university-industry linkage for pushing up FDI-led industrialization in Vietnam. The symposium welcomed about 100 participants from 27 countries. Many lessons and experiences on technological education were shared. As a keynote speaker, Prof. William E. Dugger from Virginia Tech. University clarified the difference in science and technology, and suggested contents should be taught in the study of technology to ensure that all people are technologically literate in the future. At an oral session, Prof. Ikeda Norihiro from Toyohashi Univ. of Technology (TUT), Japan shared experiences in promoting U-I linkage in Sri Lanka, a project implemented by TUT in the framework of MEXT International Cooperation Initiative. Slides (PDF374KB).

Workshop on maternal and child health

On July 1, Prof. Megumi Haruna, Department of Midwifery and Women’s Health, Division of Health Sciences and Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, Univ. of Tokyo presented a research on maternal and child health in Japan. Ms. Erika Ota, a PhD student at Pasteur Institute in Nha Trang province, followed by a presentation on "Pre-pregnancy body mass index and pregnancy weight gain: Associations with perinatal outcome". Attendants were doctors and professors from Institute of Sociology, Hanoi Central Maternity Hospital and Vietnam National Hospital of Pediatrics. According to Prof. Haruna, the rate of breastfeeding in Japan is much lower than Vietnam. Although the pregnant mothers in Japan have more conditions to take care their health, the risk of low birth weight in Japan is increasing. Beside this risk, there are many other perinatal risks like macrosomia, preterm delivery, pregnant induced hypertension, hemorrhage. HarunaSlides (PDF2.7MB). OtaSlides (PPSX554KB).

Vietnam - Japan monozukuri partnership for SI

On 24 June 2008, Prof. Kenichi Ohno, Co-director of VDF presented VDF proposal for monozukuri partnership between the two countries to promote supporting industry (SI) in Vietnam. Monuzukuri is a native Japanese term, can be understood as Japanese style skill-based manufacturing. The monozukuri partnership aims to improve Vietnam's industrial capability, to pursuer win-win and long-term relationship. By establishing such partnership, the two countries will jointly produce high skill products through proper division of labor, where Japan will perform capital & knowledge-intensive monozukuri processes and Vietnam will perform labor-intensive monozukuri processes. The Japanese Ambassador Mitsuo Sakaba, experts from MOIT, MPI (ASMED, TAC Hanoi), VCCI, JICA, JETRO, VDF etc. participated in the workshop. Mr. Sakaba strengthened an important role of SI in solving Vietnam's long-term problems (such as Vietnam +1), which seem not be paid enough attention from top leaders. The participants raised questions on how to realize and what were criteria for the successful monozukuri partnership. A mechanism to effectively receive Japanese retired engineers in large-scale was also discussed to ensure right experts to be sent to right firms. SlidesE (PDF188KB), SlideV (PDF636KB).

Development of supporting industry in Vietnam

On 12 June 2008, VDF organized a workshop on Vietnam's supporting industry. Mr. Nguyen Anh Nam, an expert of Institute for Industrial Policy and Strategy (MOIT) explained the contents of the supporting industry master plan approved by the MOI (MOIT now) in July 2007. The workshop was attended by the Japanese Ambassador Mitsuo Sakaba, experts from JETRO, MOIT, MPI, and TAC Hanoi. The Ambassador raised a question on how the master plan has been implemented after its approval. In fact, measures proposed in the master plan are too general, so not many actions have been realized, excepting two projects on HRD in manufacturing introduced in HCMC and Thai Nguyen province. However, there is overlapping in implementation of some actions, for example, SI databases are produced by MOIT, VCCI, TAC, etc. Mr. Sakaba's idea is that to promote supporting industry, it is essential for Vietnam to improve local manufacturing capability prior to strengthening linkages between FDI and local firms. SlidesE (PDF268KB), SlidesV (PDF627KB)