Nguyen Thanh Phong, Party Central Committee member, Deputy Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee and Chairman of the City People’s Committee (Photo: VOV)
According to Chairman Phong, summarizing the experiences from successful reality of some countries in the region and around the world, Ho Chi Minh City always determines the importance of developing a knowledge-based economy in its development orientation and strategy.
In fact, Ho Chi Minh City effectively exploits the advantages of being a special city, a big economic, cultural, education and training, science and technology center in the development of knowledge-based economy, forming foundations for the knowledge-based economy, including a large number of intellectuals, smart cities, high-tech parks, innovation start-up centers, large technology corporations, research and development centers, and Information technology infrastructure on the 5G network platform.
On that basis, the city step by step shifts the economic structure towards increasing knowledge content, focusing on developing high-tech industries, and participating in the global value chain.
The city’s hi-tech park alone has so far attracted 162 projects with a total investment of more than USD7.65 billion, with the production value of high-tech products in 2020 reaching more than USD20 billion, the average labor productivity being 20 times higher than the city's average labor productivity, and attracting many technologically strong multinational corporations.
Ho Chi Minh City is also the first locality to issue a digital transformation program to promote the digital economy, digital government and digital society, and issue the program on building the city to become a smart city.
In particular, the city is researching to build planning for a highly innovative and interactive eastern urban area in connection with the establishment of Thu Duc City.
To realize the goal, according to Chairman Phong, the city will focus on completing the mechanisms and policies, and creating a suitable legal framework for the development of the knowledge-based economy. “It is necessary to develop a program on developing a knowledge-based economy in the 2021-2030 period with a vision to 2045,” he said.
Besides, the city will strongly develop a source of high-quality labor, improve people's knowledge, and train talents; concentrate investment in education development; and transfer advanced training programs of countries in the region and around the world.
“The national science and technology capacity needs to be strengthened to be able to absorb, master and creatively apply the latest scientific and technological knowledge of the world necessary for the country's development, building advanced science - technology in Vietnam,” said Chairman Phong./.