HCM CITY – About 1,300 start-up projects in HCM City will receive support from the HCM City Young Businesspeople Association (YBA) from 2016 to 2020.

The association would also call for investments worth VNĐ500 billion (US$22.5 million) in more than 100 other start-up projects, YBA Nguyễn Thu Phong said on Wednesday, while speaking at a meeting of municipal leaders and young entrepreneurs in the city.

Phong said the association proposed to be the main co-ordinator of programmes targeting small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The association will also send its members to join start-up-related working groups to help promote programmes that encourage start-ups and the spirit of creativity. 
Trần Bằng Việt, CEO of Le & Associate Company, which provides human resource solutions, said it was necessary to define specific criteria to select start-up projects that would be supported.

For example, they must be specific and feasible, and present new ideas. Products and services provided by start-up firms must ensure sustainable development and bring high added value, contributing to the city’s socio-economic performance, he said.

Việt Nam had set up a national start-up fund with a capital of VNĐ100 billion ($4.5 million), but the funds could not meet the real demand, Nguyễn Hoàng Thái Dương, director of Color Life Co Ltd, which is an example of a successful start-up, said.

He said the city should implement programmes that help lure more investments to start-ups.

Start-ups should be oriented towards the city’s socio-economic development plans, Dương said, suggesting they should specialise in the industry of parts supply and the high-tech sector that are now the city’s overriding priorities.

Chairman of the municipal people’s committee Nguyễn Thành Phong said the locality would speed up measures to form a start-up ecosystem and encourage creative start-ups.

HCM City, one of the country’s largest economic hubs, aims to expand the number of enterprises in the city to 500,000 by 2020, according to its draft plan announced earlier this month.

Currently, the southern metropolis, with 12 million people, has 270,000 registered firms, including 170,000 operational ones. It also had 250,000 household businesses that have high potential to develop into companies, Phong said. – VNS