Hanoi (VNA) – The northern port city of Hai Phong will become Vietnam’scentre for marine science and technology development, as set in the Politburo’sResolution No.45 on building and developing the city by 2030, with a vision to2045.

To achieve this goal, Hai Phong has set out a number oforientations for science and technology development, with focus on theresearch, transfer and application of technologies relevant to the city's developmentstrategy.

Important contributor to city’s economic development

Three economic development pillars identified by Hai Phong are high-tech industry, seaports and logistics, and tourism and commerce,which are all based on the strengths of a coastal locality.

Recently, in a meeting with leaders of the Ministry ofScience and Technology, Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen VanTung said that Hai Phong, as a main gateway to the sea of northern localities, is a key marine economic development centre of thecountry. Its economic scale has expanded continuously, maintaining the secondposition in the Red River Delta, after Hanoi. Its gross regional domesticproduct (GRDP) in the 2016-2020 period increased by 14.02% per year on average,2.1 times higher than the national rate of 6.68%.

The city’s efforts in the research, application anddevelopment of science and technology have made important contributions to thegeneral growth. Specifically, in the high-tech industry, the proportion of high-tech products in the city's total industrial production value hasincreased year after year, reaching 39.5% in 2019 and 40.12% in 2021. The shareof high-tech industrial products in the processing andmanufacturing sector rose rapidly from 16.4% in 2015 to 50% in 2021.

In the field of agriculture and fisheries, the city hasstepped up the research and application of science and technology in associationwith the new-style rural area building programme. The application of advancedtechnology in agricultural production and post-harvest preservation has resulted in drastic changes in the yield and quality of crop products. Thevalue of crop and aquatic products per hectare of land in Hai Phong increasedfrom 72.95 million VND (3,100 USD) per year in 2008 to 169.1 million VND last year.

An outstanding strength of Hai Phong in accessing foreigntechnologies for marine economic development is the supply-demand connectivity interms of technology between Vietnamese enterprises and foreign enterprises.

In 2020-2021, Hai Phong organised nine networking sessionswith more than 5,000 meetings and exchanges to buy and selltechnology and equipment between Vietnamese enterprises and partners from theRepublic of Korea, Japan, China, Israel, Germany, and the Netherlands. Duringthese networking sessions, Vietnamese businesses gained access to many advancedtechnologies for seaport management and marine economic development ofdeveloped countries.

Human resources development, technologytransfer receive high attention

Pham Xuan Duong, Rector of the Vietnam Maritime University -a key supply source of human resources for marine economic development, saidthat one of the key driving forces to promote and maintain the sustainable developmentof the city's sea-based economy is to intensify the research and application ofmarine science and technology in association with the protection of naturalresources and the environment, in which scientific human resources play a corerole.

According to him, the city needs to make forecasts on humanresource demands for marine economic sectors, and determine the change in employmentstructure, in order to design new, specific and suitable mechanisms and policiessuitable to human resources development in this sector.

Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Van Tungsaid that Hai Phong is promoting studies on sustainable marine economic developmentassociated with the safeguard of sovereignty over sea and islands, nationaldefence and security.

In addition, the city also directs relevant units toresearch, manage and effectively exploit marine resources, study and apply newtechnologies in the development of important marine economic sectors of thecity such as ports, port and maritime services, tourism services, shipbuildingindustry, fishery logistics services, aquaculture, fishing, and seafoodprocessing./.