HCM CITY — HCM City will start projects to become a smart city by 2025 early next year.

The announcement was made at a press conference held by the HCM City Department of Information and Communications on Wednesday.

Under the scheme, the city authority has given priorities to four measures including a common-use shared database; a stimulation research and forecasting centre serving the formulation of socio-economic development strategies, a smart administration centre and an information security centre.

According to Lê Quốc Cường, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Information and Communications, the first stage of the common-use shared database and open data in ecology will operate at the Quang Trung Software Park located in District 12.

The city will invite tenders for building of the common-use shared database (the second stage) in the third quarter of 2019, said Cường.

The operation centre of the first stage will be based at the office of the HCM City People’s Committee, using database from the camera systems of the city’s departments and switchboards.

The city authority will ratify the pre-feasibility study of the project to build the scheme in the first quarter of next year. 

The Stimulation Division (under the stimulation research and forecasting centre) will be established at the HCM City Institute for Development Studies in January 2019.

Dương Anh Đức, director of the HCM City Department of Information and Communications, said in December of this year the city authority will ratify the scheme to establish the joint-stock company to operate the city’s information safety centre.

The city authority is scheduled to sum up the introduction of technological solutions in the management and operation of agencies at the district, ward and commune levels by the end of 2018.

At the same time, HCM City will also ratify the Smart City Architecture which will be introduced across the city in the third quarter of next year.

Đức said the city authority is expected to receive feedback on measures to turn HCM City into a smart city from the city’s residents and business community.

The HCM City People’s Committee hosted a conference to call for investment in building an Intelligent Operations Centre and a Socio-Economic Simulation and Forecast Centre on September 15 of this year.

The project (to building an Intelligent Operations Centre and a Socio-Economic Simulation and Forecast Centre) aims to resolve the city’s existing problems such as unsustainable economic growth, flooding, traffic jams and environment pollution, as well as enhancing the interaction between the city’s administration, businesses and citizens in the building and development of the country. — VNS