HCM City promotes start-ups, innovation in high-tech agriculture

Cantaloupe melons grown in a greenhouse in the HCM City Agricultural High-tech Park in Củ Chi District. — VNA/VNS Photo Mạnh Linh

HCM CITY — The HCM City People’s Committee will organise a startup and innovation competition in the field of high-tech agriculture during 2025-2030.

The project aims to promote and support creative and innovative startup activities to develop the city’s startup ecosystem.

It will carry out economic and social development cooperation between the city and other provinces and cities across the country.

The city is encouraging projects that use advanced technology, new technology applied in Việt Nam, or technology that has been improved and innovated to suit Vietnamese conditions.

The specific tasks outlined in the project include forming a network and ecosystem for innovation in high-tech agriculture in provinces and cities nationwide while spreading information on the startup and innovation competition in high-tech agriculture in the media.

It will provide financial support for the incubation of ideas and innovative startup projects in high-tech agriculture and support the acceleration of innovative startup projects in high-tech agriculture.

The city is giving priority to supporting and nurturing high-tech agricultural production start-ups of young entrepreneurs in an aim to raise the proportion of high-tech agriculture in the city’s total agricultural land.

According to the city’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, the city has more than 60,000 hectares of agricultural land, but the area under high-tech agriculture is less than one per cent.

By 2030, it targets to increase the proportion of high-tech agriculture in the city’s total agricultural land by up to 10 per cent.

It now has about 4,300 agriculture enterprises, accounting for one per cent of the total number of enterprises in the city.

The production value of the agricultural sector is only one-fifth the value of other sectors.

The department has coordinated with the city’s Department of Science and Technology, Business Startup Support Centre under the Hồ Chí Minh City Youth Union of HCM City, and the people’s committees in districts and Thủ Đức city to nurture business confidence and the entrepreneurial spirit among young people to develop high-tech agricultural startups.

It submitted a draft amendment to the policy of providing interest rate support in loans for high-tech agriculture to build net houses and greenhouses on agricultural land.

In addition, the Department of Science and Technology and the Business Startup Support Centre are offering a number of policies to support innovative start-ups in high-tech agriculture. — VNS