The World Bank has made a volte-face on industrial policy. Southeast Asian countries will need to consider the new policy, but calibrate it across vastly different national contexts.
Vietnam’s renewed ambition of developing nuclear power plants to fuel its industrialisation drive – supported by strong elite consensus – faces several obstacles, including an unrealistic timeline and financial challenges.
Governments say targeted funding in green manufacturing and energy will boost the economy, create good jobs and enable low-carbon growth. But there are always difficult trade-offs and glossing over them could mean losing popular support.
The transition towards sustainable practices in heavy industries such as steel and cement production is a challenging task. It is called one of the ‘hard to abate’ sectors for this reason.