Fifty two big Japanese manufacturers have expressed their intention to purchase industrial parts and accessories from Vietnamese producers. Meanwhile, 49 Vietnamese enterprises, which are now providing parts and accessories to foreign manufacturers, have expressed their wish to cooperate with Japanese manufacturers.
In order to do business with the Japanese, the Vietnamese need to become patient
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Mai Van Dang Company is now providing five kinds of motorbike parts to Taiwanese manufacturer SYM. However, Mai Van Dang, Director of the company, is still cherishing the hope that one day, he can provide parts to Japanese enterprises. He believes that once his company can “shake hands” with Japanese manufacturers, its prestige rise.
Dang understands that it is very difficult to become a partner of Japanese enterprises. Mai Van Dang Company twice attended the exhibition on supporting industries in Hanoi and HCM City, where he met Japanese enterpreneurs. However, Dang still could not meet their requirements. With the support from Jetro (Japan External Trade Organisation), Dang left for Japan to attend the training course on corporate governance under the Kaizen 5S model. However, after attending the recent exhibition organized by Jetro, he realized that he still cannot attain the level of capability necessary to supervise the production well and to discover error products right on the production line.
Nevertheless, Dang has not given up his dream of becoming a partner for Japanese enterprises. He hopes that he will win the trust of the Japanese in 2011.
Dinh Van Vuong, Deputy Director of Minh Dat Precision Mold Company (Mida), also said that in order to be able to cooperate with the Japanese, Vietnamese businesses need to provide high quality products and need to become patient.
Vuong related that in 2005, when Japanese Fujikura placed an order to make mold for producing electronic parts, Mida had to meet Fujikura many times. The Japanese asked Mida to show equipments, technologies and present the workers. In the end, Mida met the strict requirements set by Fujikura and became the partner of the Japanese manufacturer.
Difficulties still ahead
Vietnam has not made much progress in developing its supporting industries since 2005, when it decided that it needs to gather strength to do this.
A lot of Vietnamese businesses said they failed to become the partners of Japanese manufacturers, because the manufacturers always set up overly high requirements, while Vietnamese producers are not financially and technologically capable to meet them andto pursue Japanese clients.
Sachio Kagayama, General Director of Canon Vietnam once complained that he could not find part suppliers in Vietnam, and that Canon Vietnam still had to import 95 percent of accessories needed. A lot of Vietnamese enterprises tried to contact Canon about cooperation opportunities. However, many of them said they would not be able to provide accessories to Canon Vietnam, once Canon does not clearly state the volumes of products it intends to order, delivery time and other terms it requires. Canon Vietnam also does not provide any support on technical issues or technologies. Therefore, Vietnamese enterprises do not want to risk spending money to make products for Canon Vietnam. If they cannot sell products to Canon, they would suffer losses.
Nevertheless, Vuong still says that Vietnamese enterprises should lose their hope. Nguyen Ngoc Thinh from Tien Thinh Company noted that previously, Japanese enterprises always set requirements on quality first and then talked about prices. But nowadays, they talk about prices before mentioning the required standards. Therefore, Tien Thinh believes that it can define reasonable costs to become the suppliers for Japanese companies.
Source: Saigon tiep thi