Ho Chi Minh City’s Science and Technology Department plans to launch a municipal Science and Technology Development Fund while seeking to focus State science and technology organisations on activities relevant to the market and wean them off public funds in 2018.
Management software for melon plantation in HCM City. The city plans to launch a municipal Science and Technology Development Fund. (Photo: VNA)
HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City’s Science and TechnologyDepartment plans to launch a municipal Science and Technology Development Fundwhile seeking to focus State science and technology organisations on activitiesrelevant to the market and wean them off public funds in 2018.
“We will focus to strengthenscience and technology applications in the business community and State officesas well as speed up the market for science and technology,” Nguyen Viet Dung,director of the department told the SaiGon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper.
Last year, the departmentimplemented 367 scientific research projects and created 24 incubation centres.
There were around 666 startupprojects, an increase of 133 percent in comparison with yearly plan, thatreceived support from such incubations.
The department also signed aco-operation agreement with the central and Central Highlands provinces of BinhDinh and Gia Lai, and with Finland, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea andthe World Bank.
“However, science and technologyactivities in 2017 has many limitations, such as a small and limited amount offunds for scientific development projects,” Dung added.
The city’s technology market isconsidered very big, but limited transactions occur due to copyright protectionand technology assessment.
“Connections between scientistsand the market are very loose, the role of intermediate organisations is verydim, and human resources for technology assessment are limited.
“The city’s science andtechnology market still see the dominance of activities of buying and sellingimported equipment and lacks more important ones, such as technology transferor technology copyright selling and buying,” he added.
At present, the contribution ofthe science and technology market was ranked second in a group of nine keyservices with annual growth of 17 percent.-VNA
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Management software for melon plantation in HCM City. The city plans to launch a municipal Science and Technology Development Fund. (Photo: VNA) 
