Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended the opening of the fifth National Startup Festival for students in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue's Hue city on March 25.
Expressing his delight at the high startup spirit and aspirations of students, PM Chinh said that startup and innovation is an important resource for each country, especially during the era of globalisation, international integration and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
He highlighted the Party and State's great attention and efforts to encourage and support startup and innovation activities, which have helped spread the startup campaign across the nation and among people from all walks of life, especially the youth.
He noted that after nearly five years of implementation, the project to support pupils and students' startups until 2025 has attracted nearly 2,600 startup projects and more than 4,000 startup ideas and projects in the field of vocational training.
To date, the country has attracted more than 60 adventure funds, while over 3,000 startups have been launched successfully, and nearly 100 universities have included startup into their curricula. At the same time, 98 incubators have been set up in schools.
The Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union at all levels have organised more than 3,000 startup contests, drawing nearly 370,000 youngsters with nearly 14,000 ideas, while assisting nearly 16,000 startup projects at a cost of nearly 700 trillion VND (29.75 million USD).
However, the Government leader held that the growth of Vietnam's startup ecosystem has yet to meet the potential, while the youth have still faced many barriers and difficulties in implementing their startups.
He asked ministries, sectors and localities to continue to create favourable conditions, environment and legal foundation for youngsters to launch startups.
It is necessary to review, amend and supplement mechanisms and policies to encourage and protect the youth during the startup and innovation process, while giving them assistance in capital, infrastructure, human resources and tax policies, and associating startups in schools with the settlement of current issues, he said.
He also stressed the need to promote the growth of incubators and startup support centres for students.
The PM asked ministries, sectors and localities to support startup and innovation activities, and strengthen the commercialisation of youngsters' products.
Universities and training facilities should boost the growth of the startup ecosystem in the education-training sector, he requested.
PM Chinh also asked the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union to continue to inspire youngsters and spread the desire for startup and innovation among them, thus nurturing startup and innovation ideas of pupils and students.
He underlined that the Party and State always welcome all startup and innovation ideas to deal with bottlenecks in various sectors, especially digital transformation, artificial intelligence, blockchain, Internet of Things, green, digital, circular economy, nano economy, and aerospace technology, thus catching up with developed countries in the world.
The annual festival, part of the project to support pupils and students in launching their startups, will last until March 26 with various activities including exhibitions on startups, forums and conferences on supporting startups in high schools, and the final round of a startup contest for students./.
VNA
