Minister promises to support startups at Vietnam Venture Summit

The Minister of Planning and Investment promised to support the Vietnamese startup community

At the Vietnam Venture Summit, the Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung made three commitments to the investor community. First, the ministry (MPI) will discuss and engage in dialogues with venture investors, collaborate with other ministries and agencies to develop solutions, and resolve difficulties to open up and enhance capital inflows into Vietnam's innovation ecosystem.

Second, via the National Innovation Centre and initiatives for human resources development and business innovation, the MPI will support startup companies in accessing capital as well as open up opportunities for investors to connect to innovative projects.

Third, the government will do its utmost to assist the dynamically-growing innovative community via creating an innovation network. This will allow all participants to learn and improve themselves, as well as find financial sourcing to develop their technical ideas, especially professional ones.

At the opening of the summit, Minister Dung said that Vietnam's economy has produced so many remarkable achievements after 30 years of 'doi moi', and has been recognised by the international community as a dynamic, integrated, and open economy of the Asia-Pacific region.

However, Vietnam also needs to reform, develop, and proactively restructure the economy in order to improve its productivity, quality, efficiency, and competitiveness. Recently, Vietnam has seen some important signals of innovation in economic growth. According to Topica Founder Institute's report last year, the value of deals involving Vietnamese startups was $889 million, three times as much as in 2017 ($291 million).

Minister Dung confirmed that innovation is a major motivation and the key to fast and sustainable growth. "In order to realise the target, the government has been formulating and building policies to perfect its innovative eco-system and create the most favourable conditions for innovation," the minister said, adding that the MPI has been assigned to build a national strategy on Industry 4.0, National Innovation Centre, and connect Vietnamese talents via the innovation network to strengthen the country's innovation activities.

Therefore, the MPI has proposed three programmes for the development of the country's innovation ecosystem, including developing high-quality human resources, supporting the innovative activities of businesses, and opening up capital resources for innovative activities.

“Today's Vietnam Venture Summit is one of the first activities to improve access to investment capital,” Minister Dung said.

This is the first time that so many international and regional funds have gathered in Vietnam to discuss opportunities in this market as well as issue recommendations to the government. The summit aims to provide a platform to connect investors, startups, and the government, as well as raise the innovation ecosystem to a new height.