The quantity of technology companies is expected to double from the existing 50,000 after 5 more years, some of which are supposed to become a global giant.

Mentioning suitable policies and mechanisms to foster the growth of these tech firms, the Minister said that the recent national forum was the initial step to form a national strategy to develop a community for technology businesses in Vietnam, in hope of designing and creating innovative technology products in the country itself.

He added that all suggestions proposed in the forum will be carefully considered to devise the most suitable national strategy to develop Vietnamese tech firms, and that the government are thinking about much longer-term plans where ministries and industries improve standards for Vietnamese products and increase their competitiveness.

Minister Hung recommended that the Government should not subsidize these companies, but assign them more challenging tasks so that they have an opportunity to mature and sustainably develop.

Talking about the motto ‘Make in Vietnam’, the Minister shared that there must be a close cooperation among three specific groups of startup people, who create innovative technology products; startup technology firms, which exploit current technologies to develop new products or solutions for other companies; and giants in the field like FPT Group, VNG, CMC or companies that originally work in other fields of commerce, services, real estates, telecommunications but now wish to digest more into technology.

Explaining the idea in more detail, he said that a startup business consisting of a few graduates may earn an income of a few million dollars. Yet they are absolutely unable to manufacture a telecommunications device with the value of hundreds of million dollars. However, giants mentioned above no doubt can fulfill the task successfully.

When discussing the readiness of Vietnam to welcome new technological models, Minister Hung affirmed that people normally resist novel ideas since these conflict with current ones.

The situation between Grab and traditional taxi companies is a good example. The reality, however, proves that novelty may lead to impressive success.

Recently, the new model of sandbox is introduced, where new models are piloted during a period in a certain location for evaluation.

Take telecommunications as an example. At the beginning of 2019, the government agreed to experiment using a telecommunications account to pay for goods of small value via Mobile Money despite the significant effect to the bank.

The Minister said that the Vietnamese government are willing to pilot new models like fintech, techno-taxi, or even sandbox policy, which clearly demonstrate the open-minded characteristic of the state leaders.

Evaluating the level of the Vietnamese human resources in the technology field, Minister Hung commented that challenges from their jobs will force these people to upgrade themselves. They should reskill and upskill to meet the demands from their work.

He also mentioned the rich source of Vietnamese IT community in foreign countries, saying that attracting them to start up their own business in Vietnam or contribute their part to Vietnamese tech firms is one very logical solution. SGGP

Vien Hong