HCM City leader receives former Israeli Deputy PM

HCM City (VNA) – Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong received former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel Shaul Mofaz, who is on a working visit to the city, on February 20.

The host official spoke highly of Israel – an important trade partner to Vietnam in the Middle East. He expressed his belief that cooperation in science and technology between the two countries will develop with greater strength on the basis of their shared concern and huge potential in this regard.

HCM City has also been carrying out many fruitful cooperation activities with Israel, particularly in technological development and innovation, he noted.

Valuing Israel’s capacity in cyber security, Phong said his city hopes that the country will help it in personnel training in this field and cooperate with the firm that operates HCM City’s information safety centre.

He added that HCM City is ready to join hands with Israel to implement cooperation projects in cyber security and develop innovation startups.

For his part, Mofaz highly valued the city’s role as an economic and scientific-technological hub of Vietnam, noting that technological and cyber security development is critical to national development and defence.

The two countries boast great potential for cooperation in technological development, and Israel is willing to share its experience and technology to help Vietnam ensure cyber security and develop technology, he said.

HCM City should put together long-term strategies to access and develop technology in order to become a technological hub, Mofaz said, suggesting it develop human resources in the field, boost research activities, integrate technologies to improve their applicability, and build effective cyber security systems to prevent online attacks.

In 2018, HCM City sent a delegation to learn about Israel’s experience in developing technology and connecting innovative startups. The city’s Department of Science and Technology is building a cooperation plan with the Middle Eastern country for 2019-2020.

The city also plans to organise an entrepreneurship week based on Israel’s “National Entrepreneurship Week” model in the first quarter of 2019.–VNA