October 8, 2020, Hanoi
The Indian Embassy, in association with the Vietnam Association of Foreign Investments Enterprises (VAFIE), hosted a seminar that aims to strengthen and accelerate the cooperation between India and Vietnam to promote the development of Smart Cities in the country. The seminar was attended by representatives from different ministries, provinces, and cities as well as Vietnam and Indian enterprises operating in the field of information technology and Smart City solutions.
Ambassador Pranay Verma shared the strategic vision, programs implemented, and experiences in Smart Cities development in India and highlighted how India sees Vietnam as one of the most thriving countries in the information technology industry in the ASEAN region. In June 2020, the Government of Vietnam approved the National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, oriented to 2030. Viet Nam aims to increase the contribution of the digital economy to GDP by 20% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 and to put Vietnam in the top 3 ASEAN countries for digital government by 2030. Vietnam also plans to roll-out 5G Mobile Network in the near future. Ambassador Verma hopes that the seminar will serve as a stage for businesses from the two countries to learn, exchange, and open up potential new opportunities for cooperation.
Participants at the seminar focused on discussing and exchanging many ideas around the content of promoting bilateral cooperation between enterprises of the two countries in the fields of startups, information technology, and smart urban development. Both sides hope enterprises from the two countries will have more opportunities to cooperate to deploy many Smart Cites related projects such as smart hospitals, smart schools, smart entertainment centers, smart villages. Indian enterprises also look forward to inviting Vietnamese enterprises to visit, survey, and work in India to learn the potentials and advantages of Indian enterprises, thereby opening up opportunities for cooperation between the two sides.
At the end of the seminar, there was a signing ceremony of cooperation between VAFIE and Spatial Decisions (SD) to establish a working relationship in the field of smart cities development in Vietnam.
