Ho Chi Minh City needs to zone specific areas for support and high-tech industries in its industrial parks in order to drive the development of these fields, a business insider has said.

At a workshop on June 27, Vu Van Hoa, head of the management board of the HCM City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), cited a Vietnam – Japan technology park in the Hiep Phuoc Industrial Zone as example.

The park, expected to be operational from this October, is hoped to attract investment from Japanese small- and medium-sized enterprises into high-tech supporting industries, he added.

Participants said they believe such a measure will help push up the industries, which are among the city’s top priorities, as said by Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Manh Ha, but still grow less than expected in both quantity and quality.

Hirotaka Yasuzumi, managing director of the Japan External Trade Organisation Office in the city, said Vietnam needs to focus its investment on specific areas for support and high-tech industries. This will form a network connecting foreign direct invested and domestic enterprises in the production chain, thus facilitating the science-technology transfer progress.

He noted that Japanese businesses have high demand for inexpensive and quality products of Vietnamese firms operating in the support industry.

However, domestic enterprises have met only 32 percent of the demand, lower than that of other Southeast Asian countries, he added.

At the workshop, Hepza inked an agreement with the Saigon High-Tech Park and the municipal Department of Industry and Trade on boosting cooperation in managing and attracting investment into the industries.-VNA