Vietnamese firms brace for Industry 4.0

The experts agreed that the industrial revolution has directly impacted Vietnam's economy, especially enterprises.Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hoai Quoc, head of the management board of the Saigon High-teach Park (SHTP), said the revolution generates both opportunities and challenges for local firms.Sectors like tourism, domestic trade, IT, education, health care and construction will benefit from data connectivity and digitalisation. Meanwhile, energy, electricity, electronics, manafucaturing technology and garment-textile are expected to face cost-related challenges.However, this rule would not be applied to all enterprises in those sectors, he said, explaining that those which know how to grasp opportunities, update technologies and create suitable products will grow rapidly.On the contrary, businesses which lag behind in terms of technologies may have to downsize or even withdraw from the market, he said.Lieu Hung Tien, Director of Haravan Technology Corporation, suggested local firms utilise e-commerce to gain market share, given internet users make up 60 percent of Vietnam's population, with each of them spending 25 hours per week online, and about 600 million cross-border consumers globally.Le Dinh Phong, a robotics and automation expert, said small scale and limited financial capacity have hindered domestic firms from investing in automatic lines and cutting-edge technologies.He said only 1 percent of Vietnamese businesses are using state-of-the-art technologies while most of them are struggling with out-of-date machines.Given this, Vietnamese enterprises have no choice but adapt to the global trend in order to develop, experts said.Nguyen Lam Vien, General Director of Vinamit JSC, said apart from digital technology, and data and physical techniques, attention should be paid to biological technology, which, he said, plays a very important role in agriculture and food processing.Trinh Thanh Nhon, General Director of ICC, a cosmetics manufacturer, said that Vietnam's small-and medium-sized enterprises will face more challenges on the path towards the industrial revolution.Highlighting the efficiency of new technology in production, Nhon said after revamping production technology, ICC needs only 50 workers compared with 150 in the past, with output up three-fold.Delegates at the workshop also said that new administration technology can help leaders supervise production and handle problems easily.They suggested employing more labourers with high skills, encouraging foreign firms to participate in the local supply chain and promoting innovation.

(Source: VNA)