Representatives of Da Nang city and Viettel sign a Memorandum of Understanding on development of a smart city. — VNS Photo Cong Thanh

DA NANG (Biz Hub) — The central city and the military-owned telecommunications group Viettel on July 9 signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for building Da Nang as a ‘smart city'.

According to the agreement, Viettel will support Da Nang to develop information technology (IT) applications for smart management in health and education and training in the 2016-20 period.

Vice-Chairman of the city's people's committee Dang Viet Dung said the agreement was a milestone in the co-operation between the city and Viettel in IT, creating a smooth path for the development of a smart city in the future.

Da Nang, which is seen have potential to develop as a smart city, needs to adopt smarter solutions to manage the transport infrastructure, environment, power and water systems, besides population to tackle rapid urbanisation.

As a crucial step towards building a smart city, the city has launched the e-government system that has IT applications, policies and mechanisms on IT and communications and IT manpower resources.

According to the city's information and communication department, IT infrastructure is available to boost smart connections in sectors such as air control, water management, garbage collection and meteorology, as well as energy, earthquake and tsunami warning, floods and erosion and sewage, besides lakes, dams and bridge management systems.

The city is ready for the introduction of 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and the Internet of Things by 2018.

The city has also introduced a paperless administration office in Lien Chieu District to ease the manual procedures for the local people. — VNS