VietNamNet Bridge - Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, who took office as the new Chair of the National Assembly at the last session of the 13th National Assembly’s tenure, has admitted the failure of the plan on developing Vietnam into an industrialized country which marches towards modernization.

 

Vietnam set to work on the automobile industry development strategy very soon, in 1995, while it has welcomed more than 10 international automobile manufacturers. However, after two decades, Vietnam still cannot build up an automobile industry of its own. What it can do is just assemble cars and make simple car parts.

In 2014, the news that Angkor EV, an electric car regulated by smartphone, was introduced in Cambodia, gave Vietnamese a start. It is because Vietnam started developing the automobile industry sooner than Cambodia, but is lagging behind Cambodia.

Bui Ngoc Huyen, Chair of Vinaxuki, a 100 percent Vietnamese owned automobile enterprise, once dreamed of having enough money to make Vietnamese cars. 

Vietnam set to work on the automobile industry development strategy very soon, in 1995, while it has welcomed more than 10 international automobile manufacturers.

However, Vnaxuki, in July 2015, had to sell its factory to pay debts.

Bui Danh Lien, chair of the Vietnam Transport Association, noted that industries find it hard to develop partially because of the unreasonable mechanism.

“Vinaxuki had to shut down because it could not borrow capital from banks,” Lien said. “Bankers said the VND1.2 trillion worth of assets was not enough to secure the loans."

“We have been very fast in accessing the world’s technology, but we are very bad in developing the mechanical engineering, therefore, the supporting industries cannot develop,” Lien commented, adding that the government two times set up strategies on developing the automobile industry, but the strategies failed completely.

Luong Van Tu, former Deputy Minister of Trade, thinks Vietnam’s industries remain weak partially because Vietnam always has to spend too much time to make decisions. 

Vietnam, when deciding to develop the petrochemistry industry, decided to build the first oil refinery in Vung Tau City. But only 10 years later, did it begin making investment, while the refinery was not in Vung Tau, but in Quang Ngai province.

“The petrochemistry technology changed a lot after 10 years,” Tu commented.

“There were so many changes during the 10 years, and many opportunities to make benefits were missed,” he said.

The same thing occurred in mechanical engineering and steel industries. It took Vietnam too much time to think about the ways to develop.

“When we are busy dealing with ineffective mechanical engineering factories and steel laminating mills, the world has shifted into high technologies,” Tu said.

According to the head of Vietnam Economics Institute Tran Dinh Thien, the key industries including processing and manufacturing, have grown by 1.6 percent only in the last 30 years.


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