A view of downtown HCM City along the Sài Gòn River. The city’s innovation start-up ecosystem ranks first in the country. — VNA/VNS Photo Trung Tuyến

HCM CITY — The innovation start-up ecosystem in HCM City ranked first in the country in 2023, according to the city’s Department of Science and Technology.

The department has organised a conference to review innovative start-up support activities last year, and deploy tasks for this year.

Nguyễn Việt Dũng, director of the department, said the innovation start-up ecosystem in the southern metropolis is assessed as the most dynamic in the country with more than 2,000 start-ups accounting for about 50 per cent of the total.

The city is home to 40 per cent of innovation incubators supporting start-ups in the country.

Last year, the city’s innovation ecosystem attracted 44 per cent of investment capital and 60 per cent of the deals of the country.

In addition, it helped improve innovation capacity for 2,586 businesses, incubating and developing 308 projects, and 40 innovative start-ups accessing venture capital.

More than 1,870 businesses have applied technical standards and regulations in their production activities to improve productivity and quality.

The city has published 107 scientific articles and monographs in domestic and international journals, and trained 32 experts at master's level and 14 experts at doctoral level.

According to the Global Start-up Ecosystem Report (GSER) 2023 by Startup Genome, the city secured its position within the top 100 emerging start-up markets worldwide, placing in the range of 81-90.

The city’s start-up ecosystem is currently ranked 114th in the world by Startup Blink.

At the conference, the department also announced the HCM City I-Star Award 2024 for creativity, innovation and business start-ups, and the launch of Saigon Govtech Challenge 2024 to find innovative solutions for the public sector.

The I-Star Award has passed its seventh year. In recent years, the number of entries has increased, but it is still not commensurate with the city’s innovation start-up community.

The city now has 3,000 businesses, 600 science and technology organisations, and nearly 100 universities and colleges. However, the award only receives about 300 entries each year.

It expects to receive more initiatives to promote the I-Star competition and have more innovation projects to serve the city’s socio-economic development and the whole country.

The department is completing tax exemption and reduction policies to further promote organisations and individuals doing innovative start-up projects, and encourage incubators, organisations, investment funds and universities to pay more attention to incubate many projects in 2024.

The city is seeking to improve mechanisms for innovation and start-up development by creating a supportive environment for start-up companies to contribute to the city’s growth as a regional and international innovation hub.

The city’s Innovative Entrepreneurship Centre currently plays a major role in leveraging resources from domestic and international markets to support start-ups. — VNS