Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh calls for "working together, enjoying together" in creating international megacities

VTV.vn - At the CEO 500 Tea Connect program, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh called on global corporations to cooperate in building Ho Chi Minh City into an international smart super city.

On the afternoon of November 25, in the program "CEO 500 Tea Connect" as part of the Autumn Economic Forum , government leaders, global corporations and leading domestic enterprises, experts and investors discussed strategic directions to build Ho Chi Minh City into an international smart metropolis.

Event space "CEO 500 Tea Connect". Photo: Pham Bang

Introducing at the program, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Tran Luu Quang shared with representatives of corporations and international experts about the 5 pillars of smart urban development including: High-tech industry; Logistics associated with seaports, aviation and free trade zones; International financial center; Tourism and cultural industry; Education , health, science and technology.

Clarifying the goals and focus of the pillars, Dr. Truong Minh Huy Vu, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies (HIDS), said that after the merger, Ho Chi Minh City will have a larger area than many large cities in the region, most of which have an economic scale of over 1,000 billion USD.

If in the past the city only had the advantage of the Can Gio area, the current vision has expanded comprehensively with all industrial and service sectors - creating a strong internal force for a smart city.

Representatives of many international corporations have expressed their willingness to cooperate and invest in this development journey.

Mr. Larry Hu, Director of Amazon Global Selling Southeast Asia, assessed that Vietnam - especially Ho Chi Minh City - is at the center of the Asian digital commerce wave.

"As the economic locomotive of the whole country, Ho Chi Minh City contributes more than 20% of Vietnam's GDP and stands at the center of the transformation process - where manufacturing power meets digital innovation," he said.

Amazon shares its commitment to supporting local businesses to expand globally through e-commerce exports, boosting digital capabilities, logistics infrastructure, and applying AI to improve productivity and competitiveness.

Representatives of corporations and organizations shared their experiences and expressed their desire to cooperate with Ho Chi Minh City in building an international smart super city. Photo: Pham Bang

Nokia representative, Mr. Hiro Miura, emphasized the importance of secure, high-performance digital infrastructure – the foundation for every smart city. Nokia hopes to further support Ho Chi Minh City in deploying standalone 5G networks, future railway communication systems (FRMCS), and passive optical LANs (PON) for airports and smart industrial parks.

Mr. Miura said that the cooperation between Nokia and NVIDIA to bring AI-RAN into the 5G-Advanced network will help Ho Chi Minh City operate a smart city based on real-time data, optimizing energy, traffic and public services.

Representative of Sunwah Group, Mr. Jesse Choi proposed to establish an international vocational training center in the city and key industrial zones to overcome the shortage of high-tech labor in the fields of semiconductors, automation and electric vehicles.

Sunwah said it is also cooperating to develop a large-scale data center in Ho Chi Minh City, using renewable energy and expecting to receive investment incentives, stable electricity infrastructure and a favorable approval mechanism. The group also proposed ebike parking areas at metro stations managed by state agencies, with a fast approval mechanism for qualified ebike models to enter the market.

Dr. Pham Thai Lai, CEO of Siemens ASEAN, said that there is a need for a "digital backbone" mechanism for urban and industrial infrastructure. "We aim to support Ho Chi Minh City in promoting green transformation, developing high technology and digital human resources, and turning the city into a world-class manufacturing hub," he said.

Mr. Ilkka Porttikivi, Deputy Mayor of Tampere City (Finland) – where Nokia's R&D center is located – shared his experience that the most important investment is in people. "A smart city cannot be separated from an education system that connects businesses, with AI being just a tool and human intelligence being the center."

Sharing the same viewpoint on human investment, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai, Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City National University, proposed to position the university urban area and high-tech park as the city's "Silicon Valley", where R&D and technology startups are encouraged in the innovation sandbox model. At the same time, representatives of financial institutions proposed green development models, shared experiences in priority lending with customer groups to identify green indexes in production and investment with the desire to contribute ideas to the green economic operation model of Ho Chi Minh City.

"Work together, enjoy together" in creating smart super cities

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh gave a speech at the event.

In his concluding remarks, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that the forum demonstrated the spirit of listening, understanding, sharing vision and common action, clearly demonstrating "we work together and enjoy together".

The Prime Minister thanked the business community and international experts for their contributions, and emphasized Vietnam's goal of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2030, and a high-income country by 2045.

"With the spirit of turning nothing into something, turning difficult into easy, with the determination and cooperation of domestic and foreign enterprises," said the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister pointed out that the world economy is facing many challenges, public debt is increasing, global trade is declining, but Vietnam still maintains positive GDP growth, public debt is reduced to about 36% and GDP ranks 32nd globally, Vietnam is in the group of happy countries in the world.

The Vietnamese government continues to be steadfast in its three strategic breakthroughs: open institutions, smart infrastructure, and high-quality human resource development. At the same time, Vietnam continues to implement six key tasks, in which economic development is the central task, along with independent and diversified foreign affairs, maintaining national defense and security, and developing cultural industries imbued with national identity.

"No country can solve global problems alone. Benefits must be balanced and risks must be shared. That is the common spirit of Vietnam," the Prime Minister emphasized.

He said that Ho Chi Minh City with five strategic development pillars needs strong support in terms of investment capital, infrastructure, institutions and human resources, aiming to form an International Financial Center this year.

The Prime Minister called on domestic and foreign corporations and enterprises to join the Government, share benefits and responsibilities in the development process. He emphasized that Ho Chi Minh City wants to develop into a smart super city of the region and the world, need the support of international friends in the province to work together, enjoy together, the state creates, pioneering enterprises, and public-private partnership.

The CEO Tea Party initiative was launched in 2023, currently growing to 500 delegates, chaired by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The event demonstrates the stature, position and influence of Vietnam in the process of economic integration and development. The dialogue tea party brings together a large number of experts, policymakers, the business community and leaders of domestic and foreign industries... This is a strategic move, affirming Vietnam's determination to create a high-level dialogue space between the State and businesses for the long-term and sustainable development of the economy.

Source: https://vtv.vn/thu-tuong-pham-minh-chinh-keu-goi-cung-lam-cung-huong-kien-tao-sieu-do-thi-quoc-te-100251125183157848.htm