Presenters and Speakers

Presentations

Slides:   OhnoE (PDF293KB)   OhnoV (PDF713KB)  HuyenE (PDF147KB)  HuyenV (PDF374KB)
 

Vietnam must open up boldly, and link FDI and local firms. Hanoi must also improve investors' perception, study the possibility of production linkage with China, build the Greater Hanoi area, improve transportation and logistics, and lead the nation in adopting high standards. Policy formulation must be upgraded by deepening business involvement and inter-agency coordination. To cope with China and to level up industrial capability, Hanoi should learn integral manufacturing as opposed to modular manufacturing. Integral manufacturing takes time and effort, but it can become the basis of building strong supporting industries and industrial human resources which other ASEAN countries have so far failed to build. FDI marketing, which is general and unfocused at present, should become more targeted and pro-active.

As many provinces in Vietnam are striving to absorb FDI, Hanoi should become a more attractive destination in the post-WTO period. To achieve this, the marketing approach is useful, with clearly identified target markets, marketing factors, and planning groups. At present, Hanoi scores relatively low in provincial ranking, and its policy formulation does not sufficiently incorporate the opinions of the business community. A series of VDF surveys in 2005 and 2006 have confirmed that investors' evaluation of Hanoi is not very high in many areas. There is also a gap between Hanoi authority's self-perception and investors' assessment. Specific issues were introduced and discussed in planning method, officials' attitude, transportation, industrial zones, environmental protection, and enterprise finance.

Discussion Highlights

■ A number of participants questioned if Vietnam should only target integral manufacturing (interactive production method with close internal coordination for high quality) and ignore modular manufacturing (flexibly combining purchased parts with common interface). They felt that Vietnam should pursue both, although integral should be the long-term goal. Prof. Ohno agreed with the two-track approach, but commented that modular production was easy and automatically arising, but integral production was difficult and would require policy support.

■  The VDF study focused on manufacturing but some participants felt that services were equally important. Hanoi should promote both manufacturing and services. Others stressed that Hanoi no longer needed labor-intensive manufacturing and should now attract high-tech manufacturing and high-value services only.

■ Hanoi now lacks industrial land, and the government steering committee is now pondering the creation of the Greater Hanoi Area to include neighboring provinces. Industrial allocation, labor, transport, logistics, environment, etc. must be considered in a broader context of Greater Hanoi. Hanoi should become the hub of regional coordination in Northern Vietnam. Labor-intensive or polluting factories should be relocated to outside Hanoi.

■ Some participant argued that Hanoi's vision of becoming an industrial city by 2015 was too general and ambiguous, and more concrete targets were needed to conduct effective planning and marketing, and to fully exploit Hanoi's potential.

■ One expert remarked that the lack of supporting industries (SI) was a serious weakness of Vietnam, and distinction between integral and modular manufacturing might help Vietnam to find a proper way to strengthen SI. However, he thought that VDF's ideas were not new and solution required concrete proposals, not just mentioning problems.

■  Hanoi Vice Chairman Mme. Hang invited VDF to meet the leadership of Hanoi to discuss concrete strategies to improve Hanoi's attractiveness for investors.