Vietnam gets advice

Citation

(2010), "Vietnam gets advice", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2010.07959dab.005

Vietnam gets advice

Article Type: News From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 59, Issue 4

Late industrialisation is a process of learning rather than frontier innovation that the Government should encourage, said Manchester University’s Professor Frederick Nixson at a recent seminar held by the Vietnam Institute of Social Science.

Speaking at the workshop on Government Role and Industrial Policy in the East Asia Region, Nixson said that private initiative must be embedded in a framework of public action that encourages the development of new competitive advantages.

Vietnam’s record of economic growth and development over the past two decades had vindicated the strategy of developing export oriented, labour intensive, manufacturing sector activities and a reformed agricultural sector, said Nixson.

Professor Ha-joon Chang from the University of Cambridge said that industrial policy should be the co-ordination of complementary investments, competing investments through entry regulation, investment cartels and negotiated capacity cuts.

He suggested that Government policies should ensure economies of scale and regulation on technology imports with an emphasis on the infant industries starting to export from early on and screening for obsolete technologies. Chang said that successful industrial policy required political conditions including the commitment of the leadership to economic development, the coherence of the state machine and the ability of the State to discipline the recipients of its support.

“Developing countries are routinely told to adopt global standard institutions used by the richest countries, when many of them clearly do not have the capabilities to effectively run such institutions,” said Chang.