Phan Minh Tan, director of the department, said "The project, which was approved by the city government in December, aims at lending a helping hand to enterprises in four key preferential industries, namely mechanics, electronics and information technology, chemical and pharmaceutical and foodstuff production." Tan said technologies employed in such concentrated production zones were so obsolete and needed to be replaced. “Over 50% of the companies operating at the city’s industrial parks and export processing zones are using backward production technologies,” he said, taking Linh Trung Export Processing Zone in Thu Duc District as an example where 51% of its companies are using backward production technologies.

The city aims to throw its support behind enterprises wanting to replace the obsolete technology over a period of five years, Tan said. He added that renovation of production technologies has been slow, especially at small and medium companies. Technologies at such IPs and EPZs are backwards despite most tenants in such zones are foreign-invested ones. This is because authorities in the past were more interested in attracting investment without paying due concern to technologies, said Tu Minh Thien, director of the HCMC Investment and Trade Promotion Center.

“To change this consequence, my viewpoint for the future investment attraction in the city is careful selection of investors that have advanced production technologies corresponding to the city’s guidelines for industrial renovation,” Thien said. Outdated production technologies have resulted in increased pollution that harms the health and livelihood of many people living near the industrial parks and export processing zones.

The city’s three export processing zones and 12 industrial parks are home to 950 domestic and foreign-owned companies. According to the approved project for production technology renovation, the city wants the mechanical and machinery manufacturing industry to achieve a manufacturing capacity worth US$400 million annually by next year.

The electronics and information technology and foodstuff production industries are targeted for a technology renovation rate of 15% per year over the next five years instead of the current rate of 5% per year.