Promoting cluster policy in Vietnam:
some lessons for institutional building
prof. Nicola D. Coniglio
University of Bari (Italy) & Norwegian School of Economics
New Delhi (India), 20-22 February 2014
Learning from a case study:
The project: UNIDO Project “SME Cluster Development” in
Vietnam (2010-2012)
Aim: building national capacity for (scaling up) cluster
policy in Vietnam.
Beyond the “pilot” approach: working – together with
different Ministries and CIEM - with the Institutional
aspects of sustainable cluster development (policy
design).
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Do we really need to ”embedd” cluster policy into
the Institutional framework?
(pilot) Cluster development initiatives might be successful in
the absence of a structured “cluster development framework”
…. but….
… the scaling up of cluster development initiatives
requires an Institutional arrangement (software: legislation
/ Master plan / policy guidelines; hardware: public officials –
national or subnational agencies or ministries etc. - allocated
with the responsabilities over cluster policy initiatives
Institutional ‘bottlenecks’ are one of the main sources of
failure of cluster development initiatives
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Institutionalization of cluster policy: pro and cons
• The government (national and/or local) is a crucially
important actor of cluster development;
• Cluster policy is a complex industrial policy:
i) address multiple market failures;
ii) cross-cutting issues (requires a competent and
authoritative coordination of multiple ‘policy tools’);
iii) Involve several actors and multiple-levels of
Government
• A badly designed Institutional setting will represent the
main obstacle (stumbling block)
• Risks: bureacratic inefficiencies / bureacratic
‘captures’
Vietnam case lesson 1. Identifying the policy
constraints
There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ cluster policy setting. The
optimal policy setting depends on the specific circumstances
 Institutional diagnostics is a fundamental
prerequisite (division of labour within the Gov / identifying
the ‘capacity’ and ‘structural’ constraints / strenght and
capacity of other key actors such as business associations)
 Avoid adding Institutional Complexity (not another
empty office in a Ministry but an effective and authoritative
‘coordination tool’ of policy actors which tipically conduct
their job in isolation)
2. Identifying the best (not necessarily the
optimal) possible policy architecture
• A checklist of the main issues
 Who is in charge? (there is a strong case for
‘placing’ cluster policy close to SMEs development
policy)
 The division of responsabilities btw Central
and Local governments (definition of the legal
framework / funding / coordination /
implementation / monitoring / evaluation)
 Involvement of other stakeholders
3. Why we might need an ‘impartial broker’
also for the ‘Institutional’ element of cluster
policy
• Limited institutional capabilities (transferring
or developing ‘best practices’)
• Heterogeneous ‘visions’ (often very confused
vision…)
• Intra-institutional conflicts (need a neutral
and credible broker)
THANK YOU FOR THE
ATTENTION!
Email contact:
Nicola.Coniglio@nhh.no
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A (potential) model of governance of cluster policy in Vietnam
Ministry of
Finance
Ministry of
Planning and
Investments
Ministry of
Science and
Technology
Ministry of
Industry and
Trade
Ministry of
Education and
Training
Clusters’
club
Inter-ministerial
committee
Cluster
Provincial
Governments
Cluster
Cluster
Cluster
Division of roles between central and
provincial government
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