Viet Nam plans to raise VND1.7 trillion (US$71.5 million) of investment from the private and foreign sectors to develop the national innovation centre (NIC).

According to a draft project which the Ministry of Planning and Investment recently submitted to the Government for consideration, the NIC will be built on 23 hectares in Hoa Lac Hi-tech Park, without using any State funds.

Building the NIC aims to boost technology and innovation capacity of Vietnamese firms and improve labour productivity and the economy’s competitiveness.

The ministry said Vietnamese firms were still limited technologically and most had not applied new technologies, citing findings of the Ministry of Industry and Trade that 98 per cent of manufacturing companies of Viet Nam had not made or just made modest preparations for Industry 4.0.

The proposed priorities for the NIC are smart factories, smart cities, digital media and entertainment, network security and environmental technology.

The ministry said creating favourable conditions for research and development, innovation and start-ups was necessary for the success of the NIC, adding that preferential policies were being mulled, such as zero land use fees, reductions in personal income tax and import tax exemptions for research equipment.

The NIC is expected to lure 40 big technology companies, 150 start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises, 15 venture capital funds and two accelerators/incubators and generate more than 5,000 jobs.

The NIC is a part of the ministry’s Vietnam Innovation Network initiative launched in August 2018. — VNS