With its favorable socio-economic conditions, HCM City should be a hub for start-ups, Deputy Prime Minister Vương Đình Huệ said at a working session with city leaders last Friday.— Photo VGP

HCM CITY— With its favorable socio-economic conditions, HCM City should be a hub for start-ups, Deputy Prime Minister Vương Đình Huệ said at a working session with city leaders last Friday.

The Government expects the number of businesses in the country to rise to more than 1 million by 2020, he told them, urging them to quickly implement the Government’s resolution on supporting business growth.

The city should also attract multinational corporations to fuel its development, he said.

It should speed up privatisation of State-owned enterprises, transforming them into joint-stock companies in the next five years, he said.

It should in fact lead the country in terms of equitisation, he said.

He called on city leaders to take strong measures to boost exports and control inflation and to work with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Economic Affairs to tweak master plans for the southern region’s socio-economic development.

The city’s consumer price index has risen by 0.57 per cent as of the end of April.

Its exports topped US$9.7 billion in the period, a year-on-year increase of 5 per cent.

Hi-Tech Park: nurture innovation

At a meeting with the Saigon Hi-Tech Park management on the same day, the deputy PM called for greater efforts to improve the park’s competitiveness and proportion of high-tech products with high value-addition.

The latter remains low at around 25 per cent, he said.

The park should focus on persuading giant technology companies to invest in the park and transfer their management know-how and experience to domestic companies, and attract small and medium-sized foreign enterprises that use technology for manufacturing, he said.

It should be the country’s best place for nurturing scientific innovation and start-ups, nurturing scientific ideas and innovations from universities and research institutes and turning them into commercial products, he said.

Individuals doing research should be supported by venture capital funds, he added.

Lê Hoài Quốc, head of the management, said the 14-year-old park is home to many global technology corporation and firms such as Intel, Nidec, Jabil, FPT, and Samsung.

There are 97 projects with a combined investment of US$5.5 billion, he said.

Its products account for 94 per cent of the city’s high-tech products and its exports for 90 per cent, he said. —VNS