The statement was given by Director of the Department of Information and Communications Phan Lan Tu at the recent meeting between city leaders with startup and innovative startup businesses.According to the Director of the Department of Information and Communications, in 2016 and eight months of 2017, Hanoi has taken breakthrough measures to reform administration, build business environment, increase competitiveness and enhance startup as well as innovative startup. As a result, the city’s startup ecosystem has been developed; startup enterprises have impressive growth rate, and many organizations supporting startups are founded and operated effectively; startup projects successfully draw attention of investors.
In the first seven months of 2017, 16,700 new enterprises registered in Hanoi. The number of startups exploded in 2016, and it still maintains high growth rate in 2017.
In 2017, many organizations supporting enterprises are founded in the city, such as Hanoi IT Business Incubator officially founded on January 9; CMC Creative Center on February 26, and UP Co-workingspace on June 15. So far, Hanoi has 15 startup business incubators. The incubators and supporting centers conduct various activities effectively to encourage startup companies. Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator successfully organized Startup Investment Festival on April 11, and completed the first training course for seven startup businesses.
According to survey of Israel experts, startup businesses of Hanoi are classified into three groups: common startup businesses, digital SMBs, and innovative startup businesses. Most of the startups in Hanoi are digital SMBs, which are considered stepping stone towards innovative startups.
However, the number of innovative startup companies is limited; incubators and supporting centers for startup lack connection with each other to build a network; there is no policy to create a network for startup supporting organizations to share their experiences, facilities, mentors, training programs and information of investors.
City plans to take different measures in order to boost the development of startup and innovative startup businesses, such as conducting popularization and education, building startup support service zone, and building Hanoi startup ecosystem portal as well as database of innovative startup businesses.
Accordingly, the portal will provide information in Vietnamese and English, including information of startup enterprises, business incubators, investment funds and investors, innovations and patents, list of scientists and mentors, innovative startup events in Vietnam and abroad. Information and data are open to editing and updating by the community.
Furthermore, Hanoi aims to develop training, increase capacity and service for innovative startups, and offer financial support for startup training, such as conducting training programs, hiring Vietnamese or international experts to organize training in business incubators and innovative startup accelerators.
The city will also increase effort, call for investment in startup and innovative startup enterprises, make proper policies to encourage private investors to create venture capital funds, and offer opportunities for startups to introduce their projects to investors.
