High-tech slant preferred in vision to attain higher industrial quality

Vietnam's industrial sector will see strong restructuring towards high-tech performance as the government desires to ameliorate the quality of economic growth with a change in export structure and industrial production.

- Thanh Thu

The government in late March week tasked the Ministry of Finance to complete a resolution on development of foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs).

The plans are expected to cover incentives for FIEs in Vietnam, where high-tech industrial development is being prioritised, especially in AI, semiconductors, science and technology, and research and development, among others.

The government also assigned the Ministry of Industry and Trade to submit the supporting industry development programme for the 2026-2030 period in Q2.

The programme is expected to cover new mechanisms to encourage FIEs to conduct tech transfer, human resources training, and assist Vietnamese companies' capacity improvement. Additionally, it may also embrace policies to develop centres to support domestic enterprises to join global supply chains, centres to boost supporting industries, and those to connect Vietnamese companies and FIEs at industrial parks and economic zones.

Vietnam's labour productivity in the 2021-2025 period increased by only 5.24 per cent per year, while the localisation rate in technology production is only about 36.6 per cent.

Vietnam has set a target by 2035 that the localisation rate must reach 60 per cent. There must be at least 3,000 supporting industrial enterprises with sufficient capacity to supply FIEs, and supporting industries must contribute 10 per cent of the value of industrial production of processing and manufacturing.

The government last week also required the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) to conduct a thorough review and finalise dossiers for the digital technology industry development programme for 2026-2030; and a scheme to support small and medium-sized enterprises in digital transformation.