Minister of Science and Technology Huỳnh Thành Đạt delivers his speech at the meeting on Wednesday morning.— Photo vietnamplus.vn

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam is advised to promote technology absorption and diffusion, and enhance human capital to serve sustained economic growth in the future.

These were recommendations in two new reports, launched yesterday morning, by Việt Nam’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the Australian Government as well as the World Bank.

The “Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Report”, conducted jointly between the World Bank and the science ministry, also recommends that Việt Nam should re-orient the STI’s policy from supporting cutting edge innovation to promoting adoption and diffusion of technologies among a broad group of firms.

Technology diffusion - not just research and invention - can bring significant productivity gains and economic transformation, the report said.

This is where the government’s interventions and support can have the biggest payoffs, the report said. 

Building firm capabilities to make the most of state-of-the-art technologies should be the priority, the report said.

Closing the skills gaps of the workforce - both quality and quantity - will be also important to harness the full power of innovation, according to the report.

Carolyn Turk, World Bank Country Director for Việt Nam, said Việt Nam will need new drivers of economic growth to meet its ambition to become a high-income economy by 2045 and innovation will be fundamental in boosting incomes and improving the quality of growth.

“But there are different approaches to accelerating innovation and this report presents ideas that could work well for Việt Nam,” she said.

Technology’s contribution

Also at the event, the report “Technological change in Việt Nam: the contribution of technology to economic growth”, developed by CSIRO, Australia’s National Science Agency, and the science ministry, was presented.

The report’s results show that efficiency and innovation play an increasingly important role and overtake physical capital and cheap labour in the contribution to economic growth.

Delivered through the Aus4Innovation Programme, the report provides tools to assess the current situation and impacts of technological progress and innovation on Việt Nam's economic growth.

By applying economic models to an extensive database of Việt Nam business technology adoption, researchers show that technology adoption contributed significantly to the total economic growth to Việt Nam over the 2016-19 period.

Robyn Mudie, Australian Ambassador to Việt Nam, said Australia has been supporting Việt Nam in making evidence-based policy decisions in STI, and this report is another major milestone in the two countries’ partnership.

A team of researchers from Australia and Việt Nam have been working on this report for 1.5 years, collecting and analysing nearly 20 years’ worth of data to develop two modern economic models to quantify the contribution of technology progress to economic growth, she said.

These reports are believed to be an important reference for policy in the economic transition process of Việt Nam out to 2030, with the vision to 2045.

Speaking at the launching event, Minister of Science and Technology Huỳnh Thành Đạt said the reports already show how science, technology and innovation as a new engine contributed to Việt Nam’s socio-economic growth and how we can move forward to continuous improvement and enabling of our innovation ecosystem.

We will continue to upgrade the national innovation system for better creation, translation and application of knowledge and technology towards sustainable development goals of the country by 2030 and 2045, he said. — VNS