Agriculture – fertile land for start-ups: Prime Minister

Hanoi (VNA) – Agriculture is a “fertile land” for start-ups, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told more than 1,000 young people at the launch of a programme encouraging youths’ involvement in creating start-ups in Hanoi on October 16.

The “Start-up Youth” programme aims to persuade the young to develop start-up spirit and mobilise financial, personnel and infrastructure resources to support their start-ups.

Under the programme, students at universities and junior colleges will be supported to realise their initiatives and start-ups idea. Young people in rural areas will be assisted in deploying their projects in agriculture-related innovation and technological application. Meanwhile, young entrepreneurs will get help in corporate administration, innovation and integration.

In his speech, PM Phuc said the Government will continuously create favourable policies for start-ups, adding that 91,000 businesses were set up in the first nine months of 2016. The country aims for more than 600,000 firms at the end of this year and over 1 million companies by 2020.

He said young people should not be discouraged by failures and that they should dare to turn their dreams come true. They should try all-out and weather difficulties right at school or immediately after graduating.

Their start-ups can begin with realising a business or technology idea or an idea to solve social problems such as in agriculture, poverty reduction, environment, climate change response, education or health care.

“To succeed, being industrious is not enough, young people need to keep learning, apply science-technology and improve their skills,” he said.

The PM also asked big businesses in Vietnam to be partners of potential start-ups so as to provide them with opportunities to join in their production networks, share experience, and make investment in those start-ups.

At the programme launch, he and officials also fielded questions asked by young people.

The Central Committee of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union debut a council of experts supporting start-ups. It also presented 50 million VND (2,250 USD) apiece to fund 10 start-up projects of young people.-VNA