4.0 offers opening up for foreign tech transport firms

What is the direction of the Ministry of Transport (MoT) in the action plan to adopt Industry 4.0 technologies?

Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyen Ngoc Dong

The Party and government have directed ministries, agencies, and sectors to boost sci-tech application and development and increase capacity to adapt to Industry 4.0. For instance, in 2017, the prime minister issued Instruction No.16/CT-TTg on how to approach Industry 4.0, towards seizing opportunities and minimising negative impacts. In 2018, the government continued to enact Resolution No.23/NQ-CP on the government’s regular meeting with specific tasks for ministries and agencies.

With the government’s drastic directions, as well as the spirit of promoting sci-tech application, the MoT in December issued Decision No.2327/QD-BGTVT on approving the scheme on sci-tech application in the sector in alignment with Industry 4.0.

The ministry’s action plan will focus on trends and applying advanced technologies of Industry 4.0 in the transport sector, as well as increasing state management and development in all sectors.

This includes construction, management, and operation; maintenance of the infrastructure network; transportation and logistics as well as means of transport and drivers; traffic safety; natural disaster prevention and solutions; environmental protection; and high-quality human resources to serve future development.

In addition, the MoT concentrates on adjusting and working on strategies, action plans, and key tasks to enable the appropriate deployment of Industry 4.0 development trends, while enhancing research and application of sci-tech advancements, such as IoT, big data, AI, nanotechnology, and automation.

Moreover, the ministry will boost co-operation and partnership with domestic and international partners to enable better technology transfer and to increase the efficiency of its application in all transport operations.

Several technology businesses are interested in projects and programmes on smart transport development in Vietnam. What are the prospects for them?

Many technology firms have shown an interest and developed projects on smart urban areas, including intelligent transport in several cities and provinces.

The development of intelligent transport in large cities is still in the initial stage. Therefore, opportunities for technology enterprises to join in are huge as the sector has a lot of projects to be carried out, including the development of an intelligent transport system for some routes of the Eastern Cluster of the North-South Expressway, with the technical designs currently awaiting approval.

Technology firms can join this particular initiative by providing both software and hardware for transport management systems, signal lights, traffic line control system, e-tickets, and a toll collection system, among others.

Furthermore, the sector is in need of smart technologies related to the operation and maintenance of expressways. In line with the government’s plan on the development of the expressway network with a vision towards 2030, Vietnam will have 21 expressways with a total length of 6,411 km.

Together with road transport, other areas such as metro lines, high-speed railways, aviation, and waterways are all subject to future intelligent transport solutions. We are currently preparing to kick off many new projects, including the Long Thanh International Airport project.

We are calling on domestic and international technology groups to join each of the development steps, from conceptualisation, design, construction, and operation to maintenance works.

As a government draft action plan to perform Resolution No.50-NQ/TW on increasing teh quality and efficiency of foreign direct investment attraction towards 2030, the MoT will build project profiles for transport infrastructure projects calling for investment. When will the list be available and what incentives are there for tech firms?

At present, the MoT is drafting a mid-term public investment plan for the 2021-2025 period, with the list of projects calling for foreign investment to be included.

To have a list of bankable projects, we need to work with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance, and others. After reaching an agreement with relevant ministries, the MoT will announce the list soon.

To achieve the aforementioned goals, it is necessary to create favourable policies to lure in businesses to join the digital transformation in the sector. In this move, one of the focuses is to study, supplement, and issue new policies to create a legal framework for the development of new business models with digital technologies, and support domestic firms to increase their competitiveness amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution.