Visitors experience high-tech equipment at the Semiconductor Industry Exhibition 2024.
In an effort to turn the semiconductor industry into a new growth engine, Vietnam is taking positive steps to be able to participate effectively and proactively in stages of the global semiconductor supply chain.
Three major achievements
The updated information of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI) at the Vietnam Semiconductor Industry Exhibition 2024 held in early November showed that Vietnam's semiconductor market is expected to reach 18.23 billion USD in 2024 and increase to 31.39 billion USD in 2029. Semiconductors are considered the “heart” of modern technology, the foundation for the digital economy.
According to Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung, up to now, Vietnam has met all the conditions to be ready to welcome the wave of investment in this important industry. This is thanks to political stability, consistency in policies and strong determination in promoting innovation, developing advanced technology industries; having a young, enthusiastic and dynamic human resource and a potential market for high-tech industries with a population of more than 100 million people.
In addition, Vietnam has formed a semiconductor industrial ecosystem with the participation of many partners and high-tech enterprises in the world. Another important factor is that Vietnam has built an attractive business environment with many incentives for high-tech enterprises.
From the perspective of enterprises, Le Dang Dung, senior advisor of Sovico Group, pointed out Vietnam’s comparative advantages in the opportunity to develop the semiconductor industry, such as the advantage of being located at the centre of the semiconductor network, which accounts for 70% of the total global semiconductor output; possessing many rich mineral resources...
In particular, the Government’s promulgation of a semiconductor industry development strategy shows that Vietnam has a very clear orientation and high determination, making investors believe that Vietnam can become a semiconductor center of the region.
According to Mr. Le Quang Dam, General Director of Marvell Vietnam, the semiconductor sector has developed in Vietnam for a relatively long time, but in the past year alone, it has achieved three major achievements.
The first achievement is that the Government has built a very clear strategic plan to develop the semiconductor industry, including the Vietnam Semiconductor Industry Development Strategy to 2030 and Vision to 2050, the Semiconductor Industry Human Resource Development Program to 2030, with a vision to 2050, helping businesses and research institutes to clearly identify the direction for development.
The second achievement is that from September 2023 to present, the number of new training programs for engineers and skilled workers for the semiconductor industry at universities as well as the number of students participating in these programs has increased significantly. The third achievement is that the number of startups in the semiconductor industry has increased by about 20-30% over the past year.
Breakthrough mechanism
In the context of the booming global semiconductor industry, Vietnam is expected to become a centre for supplying raw materials, components, and assemblies for the semiconductor manufacturing industry, thereby increasingly entering the value chain of the global semiconductor industry. However, the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain is very large with the participation of many large and small enterprises around the world in many segments.
Therefore, the key factor helping Vietnamese enterprises improve their competitiveness and develop sustainably when participating in the supply chain is to promote cooperation between domestic and foreign enterprises. Currently, Vietnam is attracting special attention from many global semiconductor technology corporations.
According to Andrew Goh, Vice President of Lam Research Group, with increasing prospects and position, Vietnam is a destination that the group is researching to join the supply chain, sourcing goods from Vietnam to transfer to other countries for production.
In this new development plan, the world’s leading chip manufacturing equipment supplier from the US will seek companions who are partners following the principles of green economy and sustainable development.
However, one of the difficulties of Vietnam in developing the semiconductor industry is that it has not yet met the demand for high-quality human resources. According to the Centre for Human Resources Demand Forecasting and Labour Market Information of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam has only met about 20% of the labour demand in the semiconductor sector and only 20% of these engineers meet the standards for the high-tech industry, the rest need further training.
To prepare the conditions to be ready to welcome and cooperate with international partners in the high-tech and semiconductor industries, the Government has taken solutions to accelerate the training of human resources, especially high-quality workers in the fields of technology and electronics; develop energy infrastructure, focusing on renewable energy and make efforts to perfect mechanisms and policies to attract investment for development.
Recently, the National Assembly issued a resolution allowing the Government to draft a decree to establish an Investment Support Fund for a number of high-tech projects, including projects in the semiconductor industry.
Having a new investment support policy aimed at large-scale projects with widespread impact in the high-tech sector through the Investment Support Fund is expected to help Vietnam ensure its competitive position, retain and attract corporations with large supply chains and satellite business networks, which have great influence and spillover effects on the country's socio-economic development.
The Ministry of Planning and Investment said that it is expected that in 2024, the Government will issue a decree on the establishment, management and use of the fund with many policies to facilitate attracting investors, contributing to improving Vietnam's position on the global semiconductor industry map.
