Hanoi needs more efficient policies to develop key industrial products

Production at the Thang Long Metal Joint Stock Company, one of the key industrial product manufacturing enterprises in Hanoi. — Photo kinhtedothi.vn

Vice Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Doan Toan said Hanoi does not have attractive mechanisms and policies to encourage large enterprises to Hanoi’s programme of manufacturing key industrial products.

Therefore, in the future, the Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade will introduce specific mechanisms and policies for enterprises whose products are recognised as key industrial products. The municipal State agencies will also promote further administrative reforms.

Toan has also proposed the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Industry and Trade to establish the Hanoi Association of Enterprises Manufacturing Key Industrial Products.

“This association will create favourable conditions for the community of enterprises producing key industrial products to exchange and learn among them and set up a production and consumption chain,” Toan was quoted as saying by the Kinh te & do thi (Urban & Economy) newspaper.

“This is also an important information channel for the city to receive recommendations and proposals of those enterprises, thereby eliminating difficulties.”

To enhance the competitiveness of the city's key industrial products, the city’s industrial sector expects to have more high-tech products, contributing to boosting economic growth.

Hanoi’s key industrial products should have brands recognised and join the national value-added chain. To reach those targets, it needs to focus on choosing priority sectors in which investments will be poured in to develop technology for production, said Tran Dinh Thien, former director of the Vietnam Economic Institute.

Le Hong Thang, director of Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade, said to help enterprises develop key industrial products, Hanoi will strengthen its support for enterprises in building brands and improving management capacity, transferring technology and scientific research, and training human resources to increase productivity and quality as well as to reduce production costs. Those activities will improve the competitiveness of key industrial products.

Hanoi will continue to streamline administrative procedure reforms in all sectors, including tax and customs, Thang said.

Hanoi must identify new industrial products which are suitable for its long-term development plan for key industrial products, said Pham Hoa Binh, chairman of Hanoi Textile Industry Joint Stock Company.

The Hanoi Department of Industry and Trade said in the two years of 2018 and 2019, Hanoi has had more than 90 products recognised as key industrial products, holding about 42.9 per cent of total industrial production revenue and having a total export value of VND11.6 trillion.

However, many of those products are unable to compete in the market and the enterprises producing them are unable to promote consumption, according to the experts.

Deputy General Director of Thang Long Metal Joint Stock Company Le Chi Liem said many enterprises have manufactured supporting products for Honda Vietnam but they have not cooperated to create a production chain.

Thien said the key industrial products are mainly processed but not manufactured, and have depended on imported raw materials. Low levels in labour productivity, qualification of labour and management staff mean those products are not competitive.

Besides that, enterprises manufacturing key industrial products face difficulties in many fields, such as tax, land, capital, production facilities and administrative procedures, so they struggle to join production chains of big foreign brands and corporations, Thien said.