ĐÀ NẴNG — The Korean city of Daegu will help build an integrated managment centre on green and smart urban management in the central city of Đà Nẵng. The information was conveyed on Wednesday to the central city’s leadership by the head of Planning and Coordination of the Deagu Metropolitan City, Ku Bon-geun.

Ku Bon-geun said the centre will support Đà Nẵng in applying information technology (IT) in urban management, disaster prevention, search and rescue and resilience to climate change.

The vice chairman of the Đà Nẵng City’s People’s Committee, Hồ Kỳ Minh, said the city will offer the best conditions for construction of the centre.

Minh said Đà Nẵng launched its e-Government initiative in 2014, offering free wireless internet services with 20,000 connections for local residents and tourists at major public spaces and streets across the city.

The central city also provided 1,196 on-line administration procedures, including one-stop shops, residential management, public transport and water supervision through the e-Government system.

Last year, the city and the telecommunications group Viettel signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for developing Đà Nẵng into a smart city by 2020.

Both Vietnamese and Korean budget airlines operate daily flights connecting Korean cities and Đà Nẵng since 2014.

T’way Air, a low-cost airline based in Seoul, launched a new direct flight connecting Đà Nẵng and Daegu – the company’s third route between Korea and Việt Nam in addition to direct flights from Đà Nẵng to Pusan and Muan.

According to the city’s tourism department, there are 12 flights from Korea to Đà Nẵng every week, carrying an average of 1,500 passengers.

Last year, Đà Nẵng and the South Korean city of Gyeongsan inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on development and co-operation in the cosmetics industry.

Tourists from South Korea comprise the second-largest segment of foreign tourist arrivals to Đà Nẵng, with more than 443,000 – nearly 20 per cent of total foreign travelers – last year.

The central city is also home to 53 foreign direct investment projects from South Korea with total capital of US$734 million. — VNS