HCM City delegation begin visits to Singapore, Indonesia

Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan (R) receives new Singaporean Consul General in the city Kho Ngee Seng Roy (Source: sggp.org.vn)

A delegation from Ho Chi Minh City led by Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan on August 21 started their visits to Singapore and Indonesia, aiming to deepen ties between Vietnam, HCM City and the two Southeast Asian countries.

During the visit to Singapore, HCM City’s officials will discuss the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in urban planning and education-training.

The MoU is expected to help HCM City improve its urban planning and education quality to international standards. 

It will focus on affiliation in innovative urban planning, improving urban environment, building financial solutions to urban development, and developing social housing.

The MoU will also aim to enhance the capacity of management officials at different levels of general education, building international standards for some sectors in tertiary education, setting up laboratories in artificial intelligence, IT, data science, automation and finance. The city and Singapore will partner in evaluating higher education quality.

HCM City is willing to design cooperation mechanisms with public and private partners of Singapore and invite Singapore companies to seek partnership in the city.

In innovation, the two sides will discuss measures to build a joint startup space, building shared labs and working together in personnel training and exploitation by strengthening collaboration among training facilities and research centres of both sides.

During the visit, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan will visit a number of research, training and startup centres of Singapore and meet with leaders of some local businesses.

Singapore has been the top investor and second biggest trade partner of HCM City for years.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam-Indonesia partnership is developing strongly in all areas of politics, economy, education, culture and society. Vietnam and Indonesia have signed a plan of action to realise their strategic partnership for the 2019-2023 period as well as a joint statement in security.

Indonesia currently ranks 34th among foreign investors in HCM City.

The HCM City delegation’s visit to Indonesia aims to exchange experience in supporting startups, attracting investment, while learning Jakarta’s experience in defining motivation for growth.

The two sides will share lessons in urban planning and traffic to adapt to climate change, while discussing ideas to deal with common challenges of the region, including innovation for sustainable development and climate change mitigation.

VNA