Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam ranked 42nd in the world and fifth among South and Southeast Asian natio๊ns in the 2018 C♋ompetitive Industrial Performance rankings of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO).

The index shows the country’s substantial improvement from the 69th position in 2006. However, the added value of the local processing – manufacturing industry in 2016 accounted for only 14.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), down from 19.4 percent in 2006, while the percentage in Southeast Asia was 20.9 percent. On that basis, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) unveiled the Vietnam Industry White Paper 2019 on October 22. This was part of the ministry’s efforts to implement the Party Central Committee’s Resolution No. 23-NQ/TW on the orientation for making the national industrial development policy until 2030, with a vision to 2045. The White Paper analysed and assessed the situation of the processing – manufacturing industry and pointed out the bottlenecks and problems that need to be addressed at the macro and sectoral levels. MoIT Deputy Minister Do Thang Hai said the White Paper provides policy makers, researchers and businesses with useful information about industries in Vietnam. It is also a helpful tool for the analysis and making of industrial policies. Recommendations in the paper will be taken into account during the Government’s building of industrial policies in order to enhance the role of the processing – manufacturing sector, said Nguyen Thi Xuan Thuy from the MoIT’s Industry Agency, who is also head of the compilation group. The paper was built within the framework of the project “Support to the Government of Vietnam in the formulation of sub-sector industrial strategy and of related implementation policy through institutional capacity building”, which has been carried out by the MoIT and UNIDO since 2016, with the sponsorship of the Republic of Korea. According to Deputy Minister Hai, the processing – manufacturing industry has been playing an increasingly important role in the national economy. It contributed 16 percent to the GDP in 2018, an increase from 12 percent in 2010, and created 9.7 million jobs. The sector has continually made up more than 80 percent of Vietnam’s total export revenue over the past decade. As a result, Vietnam has swiftly improved its position in the annual Competitive Industrial Performance report and considerably narrowed the gap between the country and other nations in the region. However, he noted, despite such impressive achievements, Vietnam’s industry is still facing enormous challenges, particularly those posed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and global economic uncertainties, including the growing protectionism and the trade tension between the world’s two biggest economies. Le Thi Thanh Thao, UNIDO Country Representative in Vietnam, said industrial competition is the main growth momentum in developing countries since a competitive industry will accelerate the structural shifting that is a decisive factor in national development and poverty reduction. She pledged to further coordinate with the MoIT in industrial development in the country. Over the past time, UNIDO has closely partnered with the ministry in promoting strategies and policies on industrial development through institutional capacity enhancement, completing industrial reports in both public and private sectors, and proposing strategies and specific policies for the processing – manufacturing sector, she noted. Earlier, the project carried out by the MoIT and UNIDO had introduced and provided training in the use of the “Enhancing the Quality of Industry Policies” (EQuIP) toolbox, built by UNIDO and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). The EQuIP offers methodologies for industrial diagnosis and strategy design, as well as instruments for analysing industrial data with social and environmental aspects taken into account to formulate evidence-based dynamic industrial policies. Thao said they hope that the EQuIP toolbox and the Industrial Analytics Platform (IAP) of UNIDO will continue to be used by Vietnamese policy makers to build sustainable and inclusive industrial development strategies./.