Vietnamese scientists have recently made considerable progresses in the field of engineering, said the Vietnam Economic News.

The Vietnam Forestry University, Hanoi University of Science and Technology and Military Technical Academy have successfully built a fire fighting equipment that is believed to be the first of its kind made in Southeast Asia.

Although it has been put into operation for only a short time in Kon Tum and Hoa Binh provinces and the Southwestern region, the equipment has been highly appreciated by the localities. The equipment has contributed to reduce economic losses to about 150 billion VND a year due to forest fires.

The second example is the computed scanning equipment (Gorbit) which was produced by researchers from the Centre for Application of Nuclear Technique in Industry (Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute).

The quality of machine was recognised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and IAEA placed orders for some member countries.

Scientists from Quang Trung Mechanical Enterprise have also successfully manufactured super weight cranes with a localization rate of up to 90 percent. In addition, Vietnam has now mastered a series of modern manufacturing technologies like the CNC machine tool, the 2ANSHA mobile hydraulic roof support for exploiting pit coal, 36,000cu.m per hour capacity water pump, 100 tonnes per hour stone grinding machines, construction of high speed ships at 25 miles per hour and tankers of 3,500 deadweight tonnage.

Deputy Head of the National Department of Science and Technology Information Le Thi Khanh Van said to promote domestic engineering, Vietnam needs to focus on developing some selected high value products with favourable market conditions and issue policies to promote sales for these products.

A representative from BKMech Co, Ltd, a successful enterprise in researching and manufacturing CNC machine tool said tax incentives need to be applied on enterprises using domestically-made machines while import tax rates of similar products need to be increased.

Vietnam should also cut the tax rates of input machine components and encourage more local enterprises to participate in the field of engineering.-VNA