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

At a workshop on June27, Vu Van Hoa, head of the management board of the HCM City ExportProcessing and Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), cited a Vietnam –Japan technology park in the Hiep Phuoc Industrial Zone as example.

Thepark, expected to be operational from this October, is hoped to attractinvestment from Japanese small- and medium-sized enterprises intohigh-tech supporting industries, he added.

Participants saidthey believe such a measure will help push up the industries, which areamong the city’s top priorities, as said by Vice Chairman of themunicipal People’s Committee Le Manh Ha, but still grow less thanexpected in both quantity and quality.

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

Henoted that Japanese businesses have high demand for inexpensive andquality products of Vietnamese firms operating in the support industry.

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

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