Human factor is most vital to national competitiveness and effective cooperation, as it is both object and subject of the competition and cooperation. Human development, human resources including talented people, means increasing the total strength of the economy. On the occasion of Vietnam Teachers’ Day (November 20), Vietnam Business Forum introduces the writing of Dr Doan Duy Khuong on the development of human resources and talents.
I. Forewords
In 21st century, the world is fast changing, bringing both opportunities and challenges. To develop opportunities and overcome challenges, we must engage in both competition and cooperation to ensure sustainable development in the following four aspects:
1. Competition at national level (government): Effectiveness in supporting business development and infrastructure development (especially in transport, energy, law, training, social welfare and environment protection).
2. Competition at enterprise level: Competition relying on comparative advantages in natural and social resources (human resources and talents), technology and new management methods to increase productivity and added value of products.
3. Cooperation in product value chains: Regional cooperation is increasingly important. A competitive neighouring country can supply input for the general chains of product value in the region. Highest regional cooperation can be achieved with the division of labour in the same product of higher competitiveness. Regional cooperation also means sustainable development as neighbouring countries often share natural factors of sustainable development. Therefore, regional policy is the first priority agenda of the government.
In that global picture, human factor is most vitalto competitiveness of each country and ensuring effective cooperation as it is both object and subject of the competition and cooperation. Development of human resources including talents is in fact increasing the total strength of the economy. Furthermore, as the fast changing of the global picture and the fast adoption of new policy have increasingly enhanced the importance of the economy, talents become vital to the success of each nation and enterprise.
II. Development of human resources and talents in Vietnam
2.1 Opportunities for development of human resources and talents in Vietnam.
Realizing the importance of human resources and talents in all-round socio-economic development, the Prime Minister has recently approved the development strategy of human resources and talents in 2011-2020 aiming at making Vietnam human resources the foundation and comparative edge for sustainable development, international integration and social stability.
For Vietnam, the development strategy of the government is even more pressing if we look at the structure of the population. In 1950, the population pyramid of Vietnam was aging people at the top and young people at the base. In 2010, the pyramid changed with the majority of the population at 15-24 years of age. In 2020, the pyramid will be almost the same as 2010 with the population at 20-34 year of age increasing significantly.
Vietnam has now a favourable population structure for development of human resources and talents. While scientists believe that education and training are fundamental for human resources development, some people think that talents are God-send genius such as Dente, Mozart, and Einstein whose talents came from different world and surpassed by far ordinary people.
According to current dominating view, Mozart was not a born artist. His early music was the composition of others’ music. Mozart was a great composer of his time, however, in comparison with young artists today, he is not exceeding by far.
Like other talented people, Mozart concentrated and worked to develop talent for a long period of time. He played piano at very young age and had 10,000 hours of training and become famous.
The latest research shows that it is neither magic that makes genius different from other hard working people, nor IQ that predicts the success of chess players. The main factor is the concerted training. Leading artists spent most of their time for training.
That fact has been proven in recent researches by K. Anders Ericsson, Benjamin Bloom and others. It has been compiled in two new interesting books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle and “Talent is overrated” by Geoff Colvin.
Those researches show that in the context of great opportunity of international integration, with training infrastructure, suitable material and spiritual environment, we can make golden population structure human resources for sustainable economic and business development.
2.2 Challenges to development of human resources and talents in Vietnam.
The coming aging group will be a challenge to Vietnam and make it difficult to develop talents and human resources.
According to current tendency, 65 years of age is regarded as “old age” and it increases the aging group of the population. In 2010, there were 6 people of 65 years old upward in every 100 people. The figure will increase 8 percent in 2020 and 23 percent in 2050, nearly four times of the present. In other words, in 40 years, one fourth of the population will be in aging group.
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Percentage of population in 2010 - 2050
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Age groups
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2010
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2020
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2050
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0 – 14
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24 %
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21 %
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15 %
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15 – 64
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70 %
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71 %
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62 %
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Over 64
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6 %
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8 %
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23 %
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Total
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87.8 mln
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96.4 mln
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103.9 mln
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Macro-economic indexes including Vietnamese debts in 2010 show the challenges and needs to develop human resources. Foreign debts increased last year to US$27.86 billion, or 85.7 percent of the total debt.
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Foreign debts make up 42.2 percent of 2010 GDP and highest from 2006. Payment to foreign partners in 2010 was US$1.67 billion (over US$616 million for profit and fees), increasing nearly 30 percent compared to 2009 (US$1.29 billion).
Meanwhile, according to Finance Ministry, foreign exchanges reserve in 2010 was only 187 percent of the total short-term debt, much lower than 290 and 280 percent of 2009 and 2008 respectively.
Also according to Finance Ministry, the interest rate of Vietnamese debts tends to increase resulting from the fact that Vietnam has joined middle-income states and reputation of national debts affected by unstable macro-economy and Vinashin incident.
Presently, most of Vietnamese debts (65.5 percent) are of low interest rates (1-2.99 percent a year). However, loans of high interest rate (6-10 percent a year) in 2010 have increased to US$1.89 billion, more than double of 2009. Main Vietnamese creditors are Japan, France, ADB and WB holding government bonds worth over US$2 billion in 2010 (US$1 billion in 2009).
The debt is not only a challenge to investment in vital infrastructure for training and development of human resources and talents but also to human resources structure of Vietnam as the national debt affects the income of every citizen while the population structure getting older every year.
I. Talents in enterprises and development strategy
In Renaissance era, human being was regarded as centre and thereby had strong impact on socio-economic life, especially in painting and architecture. However, the main thing is to develop the outward beauty of human being. Today, in the era of knowledge, the overall beauty, material and spiritual, plays central role in economy and business activities. Human being is both object and subject. It is the core theory of business development. Consequently, development of human resources and talents plays vital role in sustainable development. In particular, for the current economic difficulties, the seeking and training of talents are more pressing than ever. Big economic groups such as Microsoft, IBM, and Apple are focus points of talents and the fight for talents is increasingly fierce, second only to the fight for oil and minerals. Business Giants have set up apparatus to attract talents even those from their opponents. It is regarded as part of the competition in the market.
History has also proven that civilization of today is partly due to the development of market economy with suitable intervention of policy markers in certain period of time. Market economy has been developed and operated on the desire and ambition of human beings. The desire and ambition continue to develop and are driving force of the market economy in which competitiveness, individual and collective, are decisive factors. Therefore, in socio-economic development, competitiveness of individual, business or nation must play the central role. The transformation of the central role of State-owned enterprises to private enterprises and the development of policies on competitiveness and efficient operation of the market economy must ensure the balance of fundamental social contradictions between ambition of human beings and production force of the economy.
While ensuring the development of human resources and talents in keeping with market economy, we should make the development strategy in professional line. In a world of integration and ever higher living conditions, no doubt, our customers will demand higher quality of products and services than those in 20th century. Chains of product values today demand production relations not only at individual and collective levels but regional and international ones to meet the ever increasing demand of human beings. The government is planning to develop some pilot projects such as electronics-mechanics centre in Northern Vietnam (Hanoi), tourism centre in Central Vietnam (Da Nang), garment-logistics centre in Southern Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City). The development of human resources and talents of enterprises must combine with the orientation of the government in developing industries, regions and economic integration programmes to ensure long-term sustainable partnership.
In recent years, Vietnamese businesses have coordinated with training centres to develop human resources and talents, especially in IT-Telecom. FPT group has established FPT University, CMC and Viettel invested in Bac Ha International University, VTC Corporation invested in Van Hien University (HCMC). Those partnerships are good opportunities for development of human resources and talents. The graduates can quickly adapt to business activities, unlike traditional training of theory in the past. Furthermore, the linkage between enterprises and international training centres will be more successful when Vietnam integrates further with the global economy and in the present time ASEAN 2015 (AEC).
In addition to attracting talents, in-place training is equally important for enterprises to increase competitiveness in the market. Together with national strategy of human resources development, organizations and enterprises should also intensify their training and upgrading talents, especially in the conditions of unstable macro-economic indexes and limited state resources for the training. The training and using right people in right place are most important assets of each enterprise.
Nevertheless, the use of right people must be consolidated by guidance and promotion to develop their full capacity. More than ever, enterprises must invest in the development of human resources and talents as it increases the capacity of the workers as well as the comparative edge over other competitors.
II. Conclusion
It is safe to say that the development of human resources and talents is the main concern of the government and businesses. Businesses are increasingly aware that the core problem is business efficiency by means of human resources development and through it increasing service to the people. In their development of human resources and talents, businesses should understand the operation of the market economy and the development orientation of the government in the process of deeper international integration so as to adapt efficient strategy for human resources development. In addition to in-place training, linkage with local and foreign training centres will ensure stable supply of professional workforce. As a result, we can be in a better position to develop human resources and talents to make the best use of the opportunities and overcome challenges, ensuring the competitiveness of citizen, businesses and the nation to attain sustainable economic development.
Dr Doan Duy Khuong
VCCI Vice President, ASEAN-BAC Chairman, VBCSD Chairman
Vietnamese
