Breakthrough in smart city construction

Nearly 35 years after the Renewal, industrialization and modernization, Binh Duong Province has basically become an industrial province, which has an important location in the Southern key economic region with many outstanding achievements in innovation and international integration. In particular, in the process of building a smart city, Binh Duong gained many good results, which is the driving force for socio-economic growth, affirming the province's position in the international arena.

Binh Duong New City World Trade Center officially starts to be constructed in 2019.

To strengthen position

From 2016, Binh Duong officially announced it Smart City project, which is a partnership with the Eindhoven city (the Netherlands). This scheme is a provincial socio-economic breakthrough program, shifting the local economy gradually to high-tech, services, urban green, intelligent and modern. The categories of the Smart City project have been performed uniformly, robustly according to the Triple Helix model (State - Universities - Enterprises), which has helped the province to rapidly transform and gain impressive achievements. In 2018, Binh Duong was honourably admitted as an official member of the World Technopolis Association (WTA) and Intelligent Community Forum (ICF). In particular, Binh Duong in two consecutive years (2018-2019) was named by ICF as one of the world's municipalities with the model development strategies of Smart city in 2020.

Mai Hung Dung, Member of Provincial Party Standing Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of Provincial People's Committee, Director of Binh Duong Smart City's Executive Committee, said: "Binh Duong smart region joined ICF and was voted to be in Smart 21 Communities in two consecutive years. It has a great meaning to continue the socio-economic breakthrough, creating an important motivation for the province to strive more on the path of integration and sustainable development. This also validated the smart city development to be effective and consistent with the global trend; elevating Binh Duong to a new position in the international arena; opening up opportunities to cooperate and exchange experiences with ICF's network of more than 180 smart cities around the world.

This result also strengthened the foundation for Binh Duong to continue to make a breakthrough in attracting foreign investment, intellectual labor and institutions in the world; the development of high-tech services and productions in the future. All strategies and steps turn towards a smart city; towards a higher added value of enterprises, improving the quality of people lives.

Besides, the year 2019 – the second year that Binh Duong continued to successfully host the 2019 Horasis Asia Meeting. Horasis  Asia Meeting 2019 elevated Binh Duong's position, helped the province expand its international cooperation in many fields, especially in investment and commercial cooperation, actively promote Binh Duong brand name. Tran Thanh Liem, Deputy Secretary of Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of  Provincial People’s Committee, asserted: "The 2019 Horasis Asia Meeting brought important modern solutions to redistribute the province's development resources more efficiently, and would be applied appropriately in the coming time, contribute to developing an increasingly dynamic and being ready for international integration, effectively serving the industrialization, modernization process, and realizing the development goal of Binh Duong province to become a smart city, bringing a better life for the people.

The formation of international trade ecosystem 

In 2019, in Binh Duong New City, the complex project surpassed the criteria to join the World Trade Center Association (including 330 members from 90 countries), and was recognized as World Trade Center Binh Duong New City (WTC BDNC). This is a strategic turning point, creating the foundation for breakthrough in the international services and trade of the province. The center is gradually being planned in the Smart City project, which will contribute strongly to the branding and reputation of Binh Duong. WTC BDNC is a symbolic work that raises the value for the region, will become a global trade integration service center, attract partners, investors, intellectual personnel, facilitating the formation of international trade ecosystem, connecting the entire regional trade. This work in combination with the development of a Science and technology zone will open up many business opportunities for the industry.

Mr. Liem said: "The development of international trade services will contribute to increase competitiveness, attract investors, entrepreneurs, experts, a new point in trading activities, service provision, and produce higher added values. The success of this project could create the turning point for Binh Duong in the future, gradually forming the international trade ecosystem, would be a dynamic center of the region and the country".

Considering the economic and cultural perspective, the formation of a World Trade Center in Binh Duong would call for more enterprises to invest in industry and services, attracting highly-engaged workforce to serve the construction of smart city. The center would be an impressive highlight, a useful design to serve the community, to improve all things about physical and spiritual life of the people.

* PhD. Nguyen Viet Long, Director of Binh Duong Smart City Office, Deputy General Director of Becamex IDC: "In order for the socio-economic development to be truly prosperous and sustainable, Binh Duong needs to drastically make further breakthrough, especially high-quality services, e-commerce, as well as supporting, promoting financial investment, banking in innovative technology development. The rising proportion of services will impact and create motivation for industrial development".

* Mr. Yutaka Fujiwara, Deputy Director, Japanese Department of Economic Cooperation, Industry and Trade: "I am very impressed with smart city model of Binh Duong's achievements in this process. I appreciate the 11 key projects in 2020 which will be executed by the province in Binh Duong Smart City construction and will introduce this breakthrough idea of Binh Duong to Japanese government agencies".

* Mr. Michael Croft, Head of Unesco Office in Hanoi: "Binh Duong can be seen as the model smart city development. We appreciate efforts of the province in the developing and constructing process of smart city. The difference here is the harmonious combination of the elements of private economy and the participation of the state economy. We've found that only Binh Duong is going to get the most out of Smart city's concept, not only focusing on technological elements but also the core elements of humanities and human roles. As an organisation that coordinates cultural and educational activities worldwide, we aim to support the connection of Binh Duong to other cities, creating a large-scale network of connected localities for exchange, learning experiences in technical science and humanities elements".

 Reported by Phuong Le - Translated by Ngoc Huynh