Minister Chu Ngọc Anh and Finland’s Ambassador Ilkka-Pekka Similä in the meeting
At the meeting, the Minister highly appreciated and expressed his thanks for the cooperation and precious support of the Finnish Government through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its Embassy in Vietnam and the Ambassador himself for S&T activities and innovation in Vietnam.
The Minister expressed his pleasure with results achieved by Viet Nam – Finland Innovation Partnership Program in the second phase (IPP2), which have contributed to change thinking and culture of innovation, development ecosystem and healthy start-up, suitable for development directions of "start-up nation" by the Government of Vietnam. The Minister emphasized roles of IPP2 in supporting the formulation of Vietnam’s important policies on start-up ecosystem of innovation and technology transfer; designing of training programs on innovation and start-up frameworks to be introduced in local universities; sponsoring projects on innovation start-ups and joint development of start-up ecosystem in order to have long-term impacts on Vietnam’s start-up environment.
The Minister hoped that Vietnam would continue to receive Finland’s support and assistance in human resource training, improving capacities of Viet Nam’s policy-makers in innovation; actively committing to the implementation of Viet Nam’s BEAM program under the MoU between the Ministry and Finland’s Technology and Innovation Fund (Tekes). "The most important things are culture and ideas on innovation, which will have positive impacts on the sustainable development in the future", the Minister stressed.
Mr. Ilkka-Pekka similar highly appreciated the support and close cooperation of the Ministry of Science and Technology and close guidance of the Ministry's leaders so that IPP2 has been implemented in right directions and achieved good results. The Ambassador stressed that the Ministry of Science and Technology has been an important partner of Finland in bilateral cooperation and IPP2 has been the first innovation project and an important bridge among Vietnam - Finland partners in the national innovation system. The Ambassador expressed his desires that the two parties would have closer cooperation in the implementation of the MoU with Tekes and Vietnam’s BEAM program in order to soon announce calls for joint project proposals, open up cooperation opportunities for partners of mutual benefits especially in fields of environment and climate change.
On this occasion, the Ambassador invited the Minister to pay a visit and work in Finland, attend the Slush event, and on that basis continue to establish and develop bilateral relations of mutual benefits in fields of S&T and innovation.