Speaking at a recent event, Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Manh Hung informed: "It is very sad that the state this year has allocated an additional VND 25,000 billion to the Ministry of Science and Technology to spend on science, technology, innovation and digital transformation, so the projects submitted by ministries, branches and localities have 80% to build houses and buy machinery, only 20% are proposed for research".
problem with thinking infrastructure
Sharing with Lao Dong about the opinion of Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, Dr. Tran Quy - Director of the Vietnam Institute for Digital Economy Development said that the Minister's speech frankly qualified a reality that experts have long been concerned about.
According to him, there are some key bottlenecks in infrastructure that are hindering development, and they are not limited to hardware. These are problems with "iding infrastructure", prioritizing tangible assets, and being afraid of risks and innovation.
He pointed out that a building or a machine is a tangible asset, easy to establish a project, easy to disburse and easy to accept. In contrast, investment in research (20% of the remaining) is full of uncertainty, the risk of failure and the results are difficult to qualify in the short term.
As a result, we have modern laboratories but lack excellent scientists who can operate them to create breakthroughs; there are grand innovation centers but lack truly vibrant startup projects.
In addition, Dr. Tran Quy also emphasized the problem of mechanisms, when the policy always affirms that businesses are the center of innovation, but the reality of budget allocation shows the opposite. The capital flow is mainly still flowing into state agencies to build infrastructure, instead of being used as "prey" to solve market problems led by enterprises.
Current situation in Ho Chi Minh City: Opportunities in challenges
For Ho Chi Minh City, according to Dr. Tran Quy, it is not out of the picture, it is even more clearly shown. The city has invested heavily in high-tech parks and innovation centers.
We have a lot of houses and machines. However, the question is whether the number of high-tech products "Make in Vietnam" really created, designed and mastered by Ho Chi Minh City enterprises is commensurate with that investment level or not?", emphasized the Director of the Vietnam Institute for Digital Economy Development.
However, according to him, with a dynamic business community, high-quality human resources and openness in policies, Ho Chi Minh City has great potential to remove these bottlenecks.
For Ho Chi Minh City, to promote the implementation of Resolution 57, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has paid great attention to increasing investment in completing science, technology, innovation and digital transformation infrastructure.
Accordingly, the city focuses on ensuring 100% of 5G coverage in high-tech parks, concentrated IT parks, research and development centers, innovation, industrial parks, terminals/seaports/international airports; Attracting investment in large-scale and super-large data centers; Accelerating the implementation of the Concentrated IT park expansion project...
In the near future, Ho Chi Minh City will put into operation the Ho Chi Minh City Innovation and Startup Center (SIHUB) - a unit under the Department of Science and Technology of Ho Chi Minh City.
Sharing at a recent event, Ms. Dang Thi Luan - Acting Director of SIHUB said that the new headquarters will have an area of about 18,000m2. Here, the unit will dedicate 4 floors to attract the participation of the private sector, coordinating with the public sector in supporting the innovative startup ecosystem.
