Hanoi is stepping up efforts to show the Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park on town’s western edge into a nationwide centre for expertise and innovation – a strategic bid to construct Vietnam’s personal “Silicon Valley” and drive the subsequent wave of socio-economic transformation.
The ambition displays town’s imaginative and prescient to nurture world-class analysis, high-tech manufacturing and a thriving startup ecosystem able to powering long-term development.
Vu Xuan Hung, Head of the Hanoi Hi-tech and Industrial Park Management Board, stated that Hoa Lac had been positioned as a core science and expertise hub underneath main nationwide methods, together with the Politburo’s Resolutions 57 and 15 in addition to the revised Law on the Capital.
Established in 1998 as Vietnam’s first high-tech park, Hoa Lac presently hosts 109 initiatives with a complete registered capital of round 116 trillion VND (5 billion USD) from home and world tech firms akin to Viettel, FPT, Vingroup, VNPT, Nidec and Hanwha Aerospace along with key establishments and universities such because the Vietnam-Korea Institute of Science and Technology (VKIST), the National Innovation Centre (NIC), the Vietnam Space Centre, and FPT University.
However, Hoa Lac has but to achieve its full potential, based on Hung. There are simply round 80 laboratories whereas the social and technical infrastructure and transport connectivity stay inadequate to draw buyers and abilities.
The largest issue is constructing a suitable ecosystem from analysis and improvement to manufacturing, whereas the linkage between universities, analysis institutes and companies stays fragmented.
Drawing classes from the US’ Silicon Valley, Chinese Taipei’s Hsinchu Science Park and China’s Zhongguancun, Bkav chief government Nguyen Tu Quang stated profitable expertise parks would require robust management, a world-class technical college, home-grown main corporations and a well-functioning enterprise capital system.
Quang stated Hoa Lac lacked a detailed hyperlink with a large-scale technical college. The park additionally wanted to boost hyperlinks with inner-city innovation areas so as to type a mannequin sensible metropolis and create steady city innovation area.
Attracting expertise and capital
Duong Kieu Oanh from FPT Software, which noticed its workforce in Hoa Lac develop from 1,500 staff a decade in the past to just about 6,000 at present, stated that the park wanted to enhance infrastructure and insurance policies to draw expertise, together with incentives for high-tech professionals and housing finance mechanisms.
She proposed that bills in R&D be recognised as reputable prices to create a framework that enables analysis groups to experiment and take dangers. More importantly, it was essential to have large-scale national-level problem initiatives to draw prime skills.
Hoa Lac has vital potential to develop into the core of the capital metropolis’s digital transformation with an infrastructure system together with a Uptime Tier III information centre and the readiness of cloud computing, AI, Big Data, IoT and Blockchain, based on Nguyen Duy Nhan, deputy director of VNPT Hanoi.
However, there are gaps in 4G and 5G protection and a scarcity of area for BTS installations and a scarcity of telecommunications infrastructure planning.
He urged quicker deployment of shared telecom infrastructure and pilot regulatory sandboxes for 6G applied sciences in Hoa Lac along with the event of a wise administration system for the whole park.
Experts stated Hoa Lac wants robust incentives, together with preferential company tax for expertise corporations, import tax exemptions for R&D tools, long-term credit score incentives, private revenue tax incentives for R&D personnel and preferential housing insurance policies for expertise to higher entice funding.
Strategic grasp plan
Truong Viet Dung, Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee stated {that a} grasp plan for Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park improvement to 2030 with a imaginative and prescient to 2045 is being finalised.
Hanoi goals to construct Hoa Lac into the nation’s main centre for innovation, analysis and improvement and high-tech manufacturing, based on Dung.
The plan will concentrate on growing strategic options to speed up infrastructure improvement and enhance transport connectivity with priorities akin to guaranteeing the provision and high quality of fresh electrical energy, clear water, telecommunications, web, and important companies.
But Hoa Lac can be selective in funding attraction, concentrating on core applied sciences whereas growing a strong innovation ecosystem and crafting breakthrough insurance policies on revenue, housing, taxation, insurance coverage and visas for consultants along with incentives for R&D, information centres and pilot expertise sandbox fashions.
Administrative reforms may also be enhanced with most decentralisation to make sure a clear, handy and environment friendly funding setting to draw expertise.
“The aspiration to build Vietnam’s ‘Silicon Valley’ is being translated into concrete steps,” Dung stated, urging companies, universities, analysis establishments and intellectuals to hitch arms. The metropolis pledged to create essentially the most beneficial situations for each high-tech challenge in Hoa Lac.
“Hoa Lac is well positioned to rise to leading global models if institutions are opened up, infrastructure is improved, top talent is attracted and the innovation ecosystem is properly nurtured,” Dung stated.
In 2026, Hanoi plans to allocate about 4% of its funds to science, expertise, innovation, and digital transformation, larger than the nationwide common of three% and equal to 9.08 trillion VND (345 million USD).
Former Minister of Science and Technology Nguyen Quan stated the shortage of a enterprise capital fund remained one of many largest boundaries to the startup ecosystem.
In that context, Hanoi’s transfer to pioneer a enterprise capital fund would ship a constructive sign, anticipated to allow Hoa Lac to nurture a whole innovation ecosystem, Quan stated./. VNA