Mechnical industry strength

To build and develop the nation’s mechanical industry is a very difficult task, but impossible not to do. When a country has a strong mechanical production, not inferior to other countries, it can be self-reliant, ensure national defense – security and socio-economic development, especially in the volatile world situation such as: The current. Therefore, the State needs to have specific policies to invest in the development of the mechanical industry.

Installation of equipment at Long Son Petrochemical Factory, Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province. Photo: MINH THANH
Not enough resources to play the right role
In recent years, with the guidelines and lines of the Party, the participation of the National Assembly and the drastic management of the Government, ministries, branches and localities, the process of restructuring the industry is going into reality. . Industry has become the industry with the highest growth rate and labor productivity among economic sectors. Specifically, the proportion of processing and manufacturing industry in the internal structure of the industry is estimated at 92.3% in 2019, becoming the main growth driver with an average growth rate of 10.69%. Besides, Vietnam’s industrial competitiveness index is increasingly narrowing, ranking 44th in the world. However, the above figure includes industrial products held by foreign direct investment (FDI) enterprises, while Vietnam’s mechanical, processing and manufacturing enterprises are low. much more. At the same time, the growth rate of industrial labor productivity is also very low compared to other countries in the region; technology is slow to innovate, largely lagging behind the world average; There is a shortage of high-quality and skilled human resources in the industry. On the other hand, the internal restructuring of the processing and manufacturing industry is still slow, mainly processing and assembling activities in the low segment of the global value chain. Vietnam has not been able to proactively source inputs for production and has to import up to 91.2% of the means of production, leading to low localization rate and domestic value added. In the current context when we are implementing the industrial revolution 4.0, but at the current level of domestic mechanical and manufacturing industry, it is very difficult to successfully industrialize and modernize.
In fact, mechanical engineering has always been identified by our Party and State as a very important industry in the national economy because of the lack or lack of mechanical development, we will only be able to work for foreigners with low wages, limited economic and defense potential. Unfortunately, up to now, in Vietnam, there are still many managers as well as some economic experts who think that the role and development of Vietnam’s mechanical industry has expired, only an auxiliary role. to join the chain, etc. because this is the age of digital technology, the production of software products, the development of agriculture for export, the development of tourism as a smokeless industry. At the same time, some other comments said that domestic mechanical enterprises must also act on their own according to the law of the “invisible hand” of the market mechanism without necessarily having the “visible hand of the State”. to be a “midwife”.
Such a judgment is incorrect and unrealistic when looking at developed countries and in the region. The governments of these countries have been implementing very methodically and thoroughly, focusing on developing the mechanical industry not only through a system of policies and financial incentives but also by measures to protect the market in the future. water is very tight. For example, they require foreign companies to spend a certain number of local workers if they want to participate in large industrial projects, regardless of investment capital; classifying bidding packages in projects for domestic enterprises to participate; even, some types of equipment can be produced in the country, do not bid abroad even though the price is higher. Since then, creating a stable market for mechanical development. Looking at Vietnam, at present, the domestic mechanical industry has manufactured a number of product sub-sectors with competitive advantages in the country and in the region. These are the sub-sectors of steel structure fabrication, non-standard goods production, manufacturing of a number of machines, equipment and spare parts to serve the needs of the electricity, oil and gas, mineral extraction, and material production industries. construction materials, manufacturing a number of farming machines, processing and preserving agricultural, forestry and seafood products, assembling cars, building ocean-going ships, passenger ships and water transport…
Reasonable protection of the market
According to preliminary data, for many years, our country has imported from abroad about 40 billion USD/year of equipment, machines and production materials for the whole economic sector including industrial production, agriculture, construction of infrastructure, services and defense – security. It is a fairly large market that many countries want to have but cannot. However, the domestic mechanical engineering industry does not have much market share, has to self-advocacy and development without receiving effective support from the State’s policy system to have many orders from public investment such as: in other countries, leading to mechanical enterprises, which lacked orders, also lost at home. National Assembly Vice Chairman Phung Quoc Hien said: In the coming time, we will implement many important large projects with a large total investment such as: Electricity planning period 2021 – 2030 about 133 billion USD, high-speed railway altitude 50 to 60 billion USD, Long Thanh International Airport, inner city railways, traffic works, irrigation, oil and gas, marine economy, shipbuilding, automobiles, motorbikes… Therefore, it is necessary to have strict regulations on the reasonable ratio in the volume and value of the project to ensure that domestic mechanical enterprises participate as international practice, so not everything should be bought from abroad but encouraged. encouraged to receive
DK (source: according to DAO PHAN LONG, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Mechanical Enterprises (VAMI), https://nhandan.com.vn/tin-tuc-tinh-te/vuc-day-nganh-cong-nghiep