Hanoi City: Building a knowledge-based economy

	Hanoi prioritizes the removal of difficulties for enterprises, increasing budget revenue
	Facilitating enterprises to invest in Hanoi
	Hanoi announce the budget allocation principle in 2018

Estimated in 2018, Hanoi has granted a registration certificate to 25,742 businesses with a capital of 280.1 trillion VND, bringing the total number of enterprises in the area to 255,280 enterprises. Photo: Thanh Hai.

FDI increased the highest in 30 years

In 2018, Hanoi City proposed 20 targets for a socio-economic development plan. Happily, all 20 targets met and exceeded the plan. In particular, the investment and business environment in Hanoi has improved markedly. In 2018, foreign investment was estimated at 6.5 billion USD, for the first time leading the country. Export turnover is expected to reach 14.233 billion USD, up 21.6% (the plan was for 7.5-8%).

Despite many achievements, but acknowledged by some economic experts, the Capital still has a lot of work to do if it wants to develop commensurate with its potential.

According to Mr. Hoang Van Cuong, the Vice Rector of the National Economics University, Hanoi’s investment over the past few years has focused too much on the central core area, so it is expensive but the efficiency is not high. For example, the total investment in rural areas in the period of 2008-2018 is about 18,000 billion VND and nearly three-fourths of this capital is supported separately in 14 districts and towns of Ha Tay and Me Linh. However, the gap between rural and urban areas, the difference in the educational level of citizens in the Capital is still large. Per capita income was 86 million VND in 2017, but only 38 million VND in rural areas alone.

According to some other experts, in economic development, planning and construction work need to be invested scientifically and methodically, but now this work is a big "bottleneck" when many projects of Hanoi still lying... on paper. Mr. Dao Ngoc Nghiem, former Director of Hanoi Department of Planning and Architecture, said that the city has been planned until 2030 with a vision of 2050, but has not yet identified the divergence, appropriate investment process and implementation schedule to create synchronous and urban development. "Last time, we developed urban areas based on planning but did not follow the plan, leading to the development of spontaneous planning, urban development without infrastructure, public transport problems," Mr. Nghiem stated.

Building a knowledge-based economy

In order to overcome the internal limitations, according to Hanoi City President Nguyen Duc Chung, Hanoi has set out many major task groups and solutions, in which the outstanding is to promote economic development, with a focus on developing a knowledge-based economy, renewing the growth model associated with economic restructuring, synchronously implementing strategic breakthrough solutions, ensuring the goal of rapid and sustainable development; synchronously develop and modernize urban infrastructure step by step, strengthen management of construction order, land and environment, build civilized and modern urban areas.

Hanoi City is also focusing on building urban authorities, applying modern technological achievements from the Industrial Revolution 4.0 to perfect the urban planning and management system, step by step building Hanoi Capital as a smart city in the near future.

In addition, Hanoi aims to achieve an average growth rate of GRDP in the period of 2018-2020 over 7.4% per year (according to the new calculation method), focusing on shifting the economic structure towards services - industry - agriculture. High quality service plays a key role in the economic structure; for average GRDP / person by 2020 to reach 140 - 145 million VND; average labor productivity increasing by 6.5% / year; export turnover rate of 13-14% / year...

Regarding the economic development goal of the city, according to Mr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, Hanoi needs to be "more drastic" with the goal of building the city into a green and modern city, taking knowledge-based economy as a goal to build a dynamic, efficient and highly competitive urban development.

Mr. Cung said that Hanoi should invest in high-tech zones with priority on human resources to be strong points with Hanoi's knowledge base. The city needs to focus on many universities with high quality human resources, which will attract corporations to build high-tech centers in the immediate vicinity to take advantage of this.