Technicians use remote controls to operate machines at Saigon Hi-tech Park (SHTP)’s Training Centre in HCM City.

Vietnam’s schools need to focus on entrepreneurship: official

HANOI (Vietnam News/ANN)--Entrepreneurship has been ignored by schools and young people in Vietnam for too long, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Bui The Duy has said.
Speaking during a discussion panel at the Vietnam Business Summit 2019 last week, Duy said the Vietnamese start up community, which numbers about 3,000 firms, is still far behind the world in terms of development.
He said small companies should focus on absorbing technologies and applications from global players as a firm foundation of future development.
“We should not be so optimistic about Vietnam’s start up fairy tales because all rapidly growing companies operate upon the build-up of inventions and applications,” Duy said.
“Vietnamese firms have been copying the world and we have hardly had anything of our own. We have not had any intellectual properties being registered.”
Start up businesses require an ecosystem, which is developed based on a strong financial sector and market leading companies with help from research institutions and schools, he said.
“Local firms are only able to buy technologies but unable to master them. So they have to buy new technologies to keep business operation up to date.
“If we cannot master existing technologies, we cannot develop new ones.”
Vietnam cannot keep benefiting from a low cost workforce and cheap resources, or its economy will never escape the middle income trap, he said.
Technological advancement is key to economic development, he stressed.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, Vietnam has become the second home to many inter national corporations  who have helped boost the Vietnamese economy by bringing in new technologies and production methods.
Businesses and Government agencies must pay attention to the development of infrastructure and the finance banking system. In addition, students must be more creative.

(Latest Update October 21, 2019)