HCM City calls for US's support to build start-up ecosystem

Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan has called on the US to facilitate cooperation between the city and US partners to establish a start-up ecosystem, promote innovation, and develop smart city project and innovation centre in District 2, District 9 and Thu Duc district.

Secretary of the HCM City Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan (second from left) meets Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon (third from left). (Credit: sggp.org.vn)

He made the appeal while meeting with Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Shannon and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council Matthew Pottinger on December 15 as part of his ongoing visit to the US.

The US’s assistance in the fields is important since the National Assembly of Vietnam has approved a Resolution piloting the implementation of particular mechanisms for HCM City’s development, Nhan said.

He described 2017 as a special year in the Vietnam-US relations with the official visit to Vietnam by US President Donald Trump on the occasion of the APEC Economic Leaders’ Week in Da Nang city in November, which helped further bilateral cooperation.

Shannon noted that more than 20,000 Vietnamese students are learning in the US, which lays a crucial foundation for the two countries to boost win-win cooperation in education and human resources.

He said the US will step up relations with Vietnam in the coming time, especially in the fields of trade and investment.

The US Government will coordinate with Vietnam to address post-war consequences and carry out detoxification at Bien Hoa airport in southern Dong Nai province while considering assistance for the Mekong Delta to cope with climate change, he added.

He also mentioned other cooperation programmes between the two countries, including the building of the Fulbright University in Vietnam.

For his part, Pottinger highly valued determination and efforts of HCM City in environmental protection and believes the city will be a leading destination for US businesses in Vietnam.

The same day, Secretary Nhan had a working session with leaders of the World Bank (WB) in Washington DC, in which he appreciated the WB’s assistance to his city and Vietnam over the past years.

With a population of more than ten million, HCM City needs a new economic model to meet its development demands. It plans to build a centre for research, simulation and forecasting of economic development strategies, which is a rather new term in Vietnam but will nonetheless play an important role in making plans for the city in the future.

He expressed his hope that the WB will consider and suggest ideas for the centre construction and introduce experienced agencies and organisations, which HCM City can cooperate with.

He noted that his city also wishes to the WB to help assess and organise workshops on public spending, build the city’s budget plans from 2019, and evaluate public feedback on the quality of administrations’ services.

The HCM City delegation’s visit also aims to learn from the US’s experience in startup promotions, Nhan noted, adding that they had had a working session on this topic with the MIT Sloan School of Management.

The official also asked for the WB’s assistance for Vietnam to solve the issues facing the Mekong Delta region, which has been suffering from serious subsidence, erosion, and saltwater intrusion.

Victoria Kwakwa, WB Regional Vice President for East Asia and Pacific, said the bank could help to promote the city’s development.

It can send working groups to HCM City to discuss and assist the city in devising concrete solutions relevant to the assessment of public spending effectiveness and public feedback on local administrations’ services, she said.

That HCM City is seeking ways to promote startups, thus creating more jobs, is a right direction, she added.

At the working session, WB experts and HCM City officials also looked into such issues as urban planning, smart city building, and innovation.

The experts shared the view that it is necessary to build HCM City into a smart city, and with its capacity and experience, the WB can connect HCM City with many smart cities around the world so that the city can learn from their experience.

Also on December 15, the HCM City officials had a working session with the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

At the event, the municipal People’s Committee and the IFC signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation. This document aims to set up feasible steps that can lead to the two sides’ cooperation in upgrading and expanding infrastructure in HCM City by diversifying local administrations’ capital sources through the IFC’s provision of financial tools and non-refundable technical consultancy services for the municipal People’s Committee.

The same day, the Vietnamese delegation took part in a discussion with researchers from the Global Cities Initiative of the Brookings Institution.

(Source: NDO)