The Vietnamese and Finnish governments on March 6 signed an 11 millionEUR agreement for the second phase of their joint innovation partnershipprogramme (IPP).
The phase, which will run from2014-2018, has been financed with 9.9 million EUR from Finland’snon-refundable aid and 1.1 million EUR from the Vietnamese Government.
It aims to enhance the capacity of Vietnam’sinformation technology system, allowing the country to increaseactivities in scientific research and technology development, thuscontributing to the socio-economic development of Vietnam.
The Vietnam-Finland IPP is considered the focus point of the Nordic country’s current support to Vietnam .
Addressing the signing ceremony, Minister of Science and TechnologyNguyen Quan expressed his belief that in its second phase, the programmewill continue helping Vietnam to make vital progress instrengthening the connectivity among businesses and scientists from bothsides.
In this phase, the programme will focus oncompleting legal frameworks in science and technology, enhancingcreative renovation, supporting and developing products at regionallevel and building a strong expert team to give advice in technologyinnovation for businesses, he said.
The first phaseof IPP was conducted from 2009-2013 at a cost of more than 7 millionEUR, mostly from Finnish aid, under the management of the Ministry ofScience and Technology and Finland ’s Foreign Ministry.
