Vietnam’s mechanical engineering industry is lagging behind the country’s development milestones and demands. Domestic mechanical enterprises are currently facing many challenges, weaker competitiveness than mechanical enterprises in countries in the region and around the world.

Mechanical engineering is one of the industries with a long history in our country. Initially, it was manifested in the form of craftsmanship creating production tools, weapons … serving the construction, development and preservation of the country.

During the French colonial period, although this profession was strongly developed, it could not become an industry in the true sense of engineering. It was not until 1958, when Tran Hung Dao Mechanical Factory was built, that the foundation of the mechanical industry was rekindled.

Since then, the industry has developed quite comprehensively, has specialized in a number of areas, the level of technology is also at a certain level and plays a role as the “backbone” industry of social production, supply of equipment, machine tools, movers … for all economic sectors, meeting the daily needs of the people, making an important contribution to the development of the land economy country.

Identify the important and fundamental role of the mechanical industry in socio-economic development. On October 17, 2003, the Politburo issued Conclusion 25-KL / TW on the development strategy of Vietnam’s mechanical industry with specific views and guidelines: “Mechanical engineering is a base industry. foundation, has a particularly important role in the socio-economic development “and” must build the mechanical engineering industry to be competitive enough to rise up in the market mechanism and international economic integration. “

Institutionalizing the Party’s guidelines and policies, the Government has promulgated a Strategy for the development of Vietnam’s Mechanical Industry to 2010, with a vision to 2002, mechanisms and policies to prioritize the development of a number of specialties and key mechanical products.

The Prime Minister issued Decision No. 10/2009 / QD-TTg of January 16, 2009, on the mechanism to support the development of production of key mechanical products and the List of key mechanical products and the List of key mechanical products. key investment projects on manufacturing mechanical products, period 2009-2015; Decision No. 1791 / QD-TTg dated November 29, 2012 of the Prime Minister approving the mechanism of pilot implementation of domestic design and manufacture of equipment for thermal power plants in the period 2012-2025; Decision No. 1556 / QD-TTg dated October 17, 2012 of the Prime Minister approving the Project “Supporting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the field of supporting industries”; Directive No. 494 / CT-TTg of April 20, 2010 of the Prime Minister on the use of domestically-produced materials and goods in bidding for projects using state capital.

Taking advantage of the attention and support of the Government and the Vietnamese mechanical engineering industry in recent time has achieved certain results.

Specifically, a number of fields recorded changes and breakthroughs such as: Manufacturing hydraulic equipment (providing for large and small hydroelectric plants throughout the country), manufacturing oil rig ( supplying oil and gas exploration and exploitation drilling rigs to a depth of 120m, self-elevating drilling rigs of 90m water, oil well-drilling rigs), electric equipment, manufacturing and supplying equipment for cement and shipbuilding plants. types (oil tankers up to 105 thousand DWT, liquefied gas tankers with a tonnage of up to 5,000 tons, bulk carriers, etc.), complete equipment and facilities (sugar plants with a capacity of 1,000 tons of sugarcane / day, processing rubber latex with a capacity of 6,000 tons / year).

Domestic mechanical engineering has also produced and assembled almost all types of cars, trucks and passenger cars; Motorbike manufacture has the localization ratio of 85-95%, meeting domestic demand and export.

A number of research and design agencies and mechanical manufacturing enterprises have been gradually renovating and improving their consultancy, designing and manufacturing equipment and technology capacity, taking part in implementing a number of bidding packages of projects. national key projects.

The number of mechanical enterprises increased rapidly, from about 10,000 enterprises (in 2010) to more than 21,000 enterprises in 2016, accounting for 28% of the total number of manufacturing enterprises, creating jobs for more than 1 million employees, accounting for 17% of the total number of employees. in processing industry. According to calculations by the Industrial Strategy and Policy Institute (Ministry of Industry and Trade), the industrial production value of the Mechanics industry in 2015 accounted for 16.36% of the production value of the processing and manufacturing industry.

According to statistics, in 2016, the export turnover of mechanical products also reached over 13 billion USD, mainly of all kinds of home appliances and spare parts of cars and motorcycles. If including steel, all kinds of export turnover of mechanical products of Vietnam in 2016 reached over 16 billion USD. These results have partly contributed positively to socio-economic development and accelerated industrialization and modernization of the country.

Although certain results have been achieved, the mechanical engineering industry in Vietnam still has many limitations, reflected in the following specific aspects:

Firstly, about the market: Mechanical industry is diversified in products but competition from imported products is quite fierce. The expansion of the market is still difficult due to the lack of market information and the competitiveness of domestic enterprises is not strong enough.

Even in the domestic market, mechanical enterprises are also difficult to participate in investment projects to install equipment in the country.

(Editor: Sumac Machinery & Equipment, Collection Only)