In the conference, the HCMC Department of Science and Technology announced the city’s financial aid to innovative startup projects in three distinct stages besides other preferential policies:
- Pre-incubation: VND40 million (US$1,620) per project for no more than 6 months (consisting of a labor wage of VND10 million ($405) and other expenses of VND30 million ($1,215));
- Incubation: VND80 million ($3,240) per project for no more than 12 months (labor wage of VND30 million ($1,215) and other expenses of VND50 million ($2025);
- Acceleration: VND400 million ($16,200) per project for no more than 12 months (labor wage of VND150 million ($6,070) and other expenses of VND250 million ($10,130)).
In its 12th meeting on November 11, 2023, the 10th HCMC People’s Council approved Resolution No.20/NQ/HDND about priority fields, conditions and support levels for innovative startup projects in the city.
The eligible subjects of this resolution are individuals, groups, and businesses with innovative startup projects in the city’s priority fields of e-commerce, financial technology, logistics, educational technology, healthcare, hi-tech agriculture, sustainable development, digital transformation, and cyber security.
The criteria to select an innovative startup project for the financial aid in 2024 above include innovation, implementation capability, socio-economic effects, potential markets, business model.
“In 2024, startup-related activities like registration, support, incubation must all be updated precisely on the online platform Ho Chi Minh city Open innovation (H.OIP). This is a tool to link members in the innovative startup ecosystem of the city to strengthen the connection among startups and other organizations to share knowledge as well as address potential problems and transfer technologies”, said Vice Chairwoman Phan Thi Quy Truc of the Office for Technology and Technological Market Management (under the HCMC Department of Science and Technology).
According to the project to support the growth of the city’s innovative startup ecosystem in the 2021-2025 period, in 2024, HCMC will boost the innovation capacity of 900 businesses and incubate 300 innovative startup projects, with a clear focus on developing suitable infrastructure and supporting services in order to form a network of centers for innovative startups.
The municipal Science and Technology Department is assigned to deliver support to commercialize products of innovative startups, help small and medium-sized enterprises to improve their performance, and promote innovative activities in the public sector.
Meanwhile, with Plan No.433/KH-UBND about supporting policies for innovative startup projects in the 2024-2028 period, HCMC aims at offering aid to more than 1,000 such projects at their pre-incubation stage, 700 at their incubation stage, and 200 at their acceleration stage to approach venture capitalists by 2028.
Director Nguyen Viet Dung of the HCMC Department of Science and Technology shared that in 2015, the city’s innovative startup ecosystem was merely at its beginning stage. Thanks to the Government’s project of ‘Supporting national innovative startup ecosystems until 2025’, along with multiple practical policies of the city, HCMC now has a good ranking in the global map of these ecosystems, staying at the 113rd position out of 1,000 cities worldwide.
“The enthusiastic cooperation between the State and academies, universities, incubators, businesses is expected to help HCMC surpass its set targets by 10-20 percent after 5 years adopting Resolution 98”, said Director Dung.
Plan No.433/KH-UBND also mentions training sessions for innovative startups, and HCMC is going to hold such sessions about policies and their implementation methods to state management units who receive money to carry out those policies each year.
Particularly, the city is going to provide help to any innovative solutions, products, services that can be applied in reality and evaluate their implementation capability under the form of performing science-technology missions.
