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HCM CITY (Biz Hub) — The HCM City Young Businesspeople Association (YBA) will support 1,000 start-ups in 2016-20, its chairman has promised.

Speaking at a meeting between HCM City leaders and young businesspeople and start-up entrepreneurs on Tuesday, Nguyen Thu Phong said the association would also advise 300 start-ups and solicit investments worth VND500 billion (US$22.4 million) in more than 100 others.

He urged the municipal People's Committee to make the association the main co-ordinator of programmes targeting small and medium-sized enterprises, and have its members in start-up-related working groups to consult and develop programmes to encourage entrepreneurship and creativity.

The association would co-operate with the Viet Nam Youth Federation in HCM City and other relevant agencies to build the city's official portal on start-ups and make it a forum for interaction between young entrepreneurs and authorised agencies and a place for start-ups to present their ideas or products and seek investors, he said.

Some attendees said start-ups should be oriented towards the city's socio-economic development programmes, including the high-tech part supplying  industry.

Tran Viet Anh, general director of Nam Thai Son Company, said: "In our time the country lacked consumer goods, so start-ups were successful by producing consumer goods.

"But now times have changed. I suggest young people should start their business in the par supplier industry. This is a sector in which large enterprises do not take part while the country is in dire need of it."

To ensure support for start-ups does not become a failed campaign, measures are needed to ensure successful start-ups and leading businesses guide new start-ups, he said.

The YBA should list the causes of failure of young entrepreneurs in the past to help new businesses avoid the mistakes of the previous generations, he said.

The city has a start-up fund worth VND100 billion ($4.5 million), but it cannot meet demand, delegates said, adding that the city should solicit more investment in it.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, chairman of the city People's Committee, said his administration would speed up measures to create a start-up ecosystem and encourage creative start-ups.

The city is focusing on four key industries — electronics and information technology, mechanical engineering, chemicals, and food processing — he said, adding that part supplier industries are also a special focus of the city.

But the manufacturing sector still mainly does outsourcing work with low value addition, and industries with high added value and sustainability would have to be developed, he said.

"The leaders of the HCM City People's Committee have approved all of the proposals from the HCM City Young Businesspeople Association and wholeheartedly support enterprises in terms of policy to enable the city to meet the target of having 500,000 sustainable enterprises by 2020."

According to the Department of Planning and Investment, the city has 279,000 registered firms, of which a majority are SMEs. — VNS