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Japanese firms seize opportunities from Resolution 4.0 in Vietnam

The Hanoitimes – Japanese firms are capitalizing on new technologies in the forth industrial resolution to enlarge their investment in Vietnam.
According to the Japanese External Trade Organization (JETRO), Japanese firms have boosted up their investment and share purchase in Vietnam’s high-tech agriculture and manufacturing firms to utilize their technological strength.
Toshihiko Watanabe, executive director of the Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, Japan (SMRJ), said that the fourth industrial resolution has contributed to forming new values and business models besides helping Japanese firms to use natural resources and power effectively.
With the Japanese’s participation, Vietnamese firms can be access and become familiar with modern technologies and improve the governance, Toshihiko said, adding that Vietnam needs to change production technologies and improve business environment.
Besides focusing on high-tech industries, Japanese firms are also trending to pay attention to Vietnam’s infrastructure and garment as the government is making efforts to attract more private investment and technologies for infrastructure development, he said.
According to a JETRO’s recent survey, Japanese firms continue seeing Vietnam as an important investment destination, with 70 percent of operational Japanese-invested firms making plans for business expansion.
The survey showed that 65.1 percent of Japanese businesses operating in Vietnam reported profit, up 2.3 percentage points over the 2016 survey. The number of firms reporting loss last year accounted for 19.4 percent, down 5.7 percentage points against the 2016 survey. 
Some 88 percent of the correspondents said that the main reason for their plans to expand in Vietnam is the increasing turnover in their Vietnam-based firms, according to the survey, which was attributed to the market size, growth, political and social stability, and cheap labor costs.
According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency, Japan ranked first in total investment in Vietnam last year among 115 countries and territories, with US$9.11 billion, accounting for 25.4 percent of the country’s total foreign investment capital.
As investment from Japan has risen greatly in recent years, Japanese companies in Vietnam are seeking more personnel, especially at the managerial level.
The website japan.vietnamworks.com has nearly 300 job openings, including assistant directors, translators, front-end developers, and ICT sales managers at Japanese companies operating in the country. The salaries for the positions range from $300 to $4,000 a month.
The CareerLink website has nearly 600 job openings for Japanese companies nationwide.
A recent report from Navigos Group, a leading recruitment company in Vietnam,
said that recruitment demand for mid- and high-level personnel for Japanese enterprises last year was mostly in the manufacturing and information technology sectors.
The report forecasts that Japanese companies in the manufacturing sector will continue to have demand for mid- and high-level personnel due to the emergence of new industrial parks and large investments from Japanese manufacturing companies in the country’s northern region in 2018.
Source: http://www.hanoitimes.vn/economy/2018/02/81E0C24B/japanese-firms-seize-opportunities-from-resolution-4-0-in-vietnam/