On the morning of April 27 th, the People's Committee of Ba Ria-Vung Tau province hold a conference to promote startup support programs of BR-VT province. Leaders of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, Mr. Nguyen Hong Linh - Member of Central Party Committee - Secretary of Provincial Party Committee -Chairman of Provincial People's Committee, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Long - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee and Mr. Tran Van Tuan - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council attended the event. 

The event saw the presence of representatives from Ministry of Science and Technology, Mr. Pham Hong Quat - Director of the National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialisation Development - Ministry of Science and Technology and Mr. Pham Xuan Da - Director of the Southern Vietnam Ministry of Science and Technology, Mr. Mai Thanh Quang - Director of the Department of Science and Technology, together with more than 500 delegates from provincial departments and agencies, local district governments, delegations from Ba Ria – Vung Tau Youth Union, local universities, colleges, business associations, and students of universities and colleges and businesses in Ba Ria – Vung Tau province.

Ba Ria – Vung Tau province has been implementing synchronous solutions to improve business environment, enhance national competitiveness and support enterprise development in the spirit of Resolution No. 19 and No. 35 of the Government. In particular, the province has issued a five-year plan to support entrepreneurship and innovation in the period of 2016-2020. Besides, local universities and colleges have promoted a number of entrepreneurial activities among students, and several forums for startups and young entrepreneurs was initiated. At present, government agencies are working on draft of provincial startup support policy and the establishment of a provincial startup support and incubation Center.

Mr. Nguyen Hong Linh - Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee began his speech by stating that starting a business is a necessary step of the country in general and BR-VT province in particular, as innovation is a key for development. Mr. Nguyen Hong Linh emphasized: "We would like to see in 2020, there will be more established businesses and a stronger force of entrepreneurs in the province. In order to achieve that, the Party and the government encourages every citizen with innovative ideas which bring positive social and economic impact for the society to create new products and services. This is very important for the development of Ba Ria – Vung Tau province."

 At the conference, Mr. Pham Hong Quat - Director of the National Agency for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialisation Development introduced the project “Supporting the national innovative startup ecosystem to 2025” issued by the Prime Minister on Decision No. 844/QD-TTg dated 18/05/2016. The scheme is designed to create a conducive environment to promote and support the formation and development of a rapidly growing business model based on using intellectual property, technology, new business models. Mr. Quat stated that "Unlike traditional new businesses that create jobs and social security, innovative startups create new growth models, attracting domestic and foreign resources, bringing higher economic efficiency, profitability and having very high growth potential. As such, countries are moving away from the use of natural resource but to human intellectual resources. "

Mr. Hub Langstaff – Director of the Swiss Entrepreneurship Program in Vietnam -  a program funded by the Swiss government aiming to build capacity for incubators and startup supporting organizations and to support networks of angel investors, startup mentors in Vietnam, shared international experiences on supporting startups. Mr. Langstaff emphasized the critical role of governments of all level from central to local in promoting and directly supporting start-ups and local startup ecosystems. He also stated the importance to build a start-up culture as a key for developing startup and innovation cluster and the importance of role models and entrepreneurship education in schools in order to leveraging startup ecosystem. As such, Mr. Langstaff suggested the country to develop plan to promote entrepreneurship education which also include foreign languages training ​​to attract more investment and corporation from foreign entities.

 At the conference, Mr. Mai Thanh Quang - Director of Department of Science and Technology launched the provincial Startup Contest in 2017. There were also inspiring speeches of guest speakers from startup supporting organizations and founders of local startups. The discussion session was active with questions and concern of youths on starting business and detail answers from speakers.

At the same time, models of successful local startups were exhibited outside the conference. Participating businesses include Vifarm hi-tech vegetable Farm; Rodstarz Fast Food chain; Lekima clean food chain; cacao and chocolate producer Thanh Dat Company; Organic fertilizer producer Dai Nam Manufacturing and Trading Co., Ltd…

Speaking the closing speech, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Long - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, on behalf of the provincial People's Committee delivered thank you note to speeches and suggestions from provincial leaders, Ministry of Science and Technology and speakers about implementing programs and policies under the scheme Supporting the national innovative startup ecosystem to 2025. Mr. Long gave hopes that in the coming time, there will be a rise of creative ideas and start-ups in the province. Mr. Long required provincial departments, agencies and district People's Committees to develop programs and plans with specific, practical and active support for entrepreneurship activities in order to contribute to the successful implementation of the province's socio-economic development goals.