HCM City (VNA) - A projectto turn Vietnam’s southern largest economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City into asmart city in 2017 -2020 was approved and publicly announced on November 26.

“The goal of the project is to resolvethe city’s existing problems such as rapid population growth, unsustainableeconomic growth, obstacles to making and managing master plans and poorhealthcare, education and transport services and environment and publicadministration,” Tran Vinh Tuyen, Vice Chairman of the city People’s Committeeand head of the smart city management board said.

The project aims at sustainableeconomic growth and moving towards a digital and knowledge-based economy,efficient urban management based on development forecasts and increasing thequality of the living and working environment and improving oversight by thepublic.

“The smart city aims to create acomfortable, positive, healthy and safe living environment with convenient publictransportation, good healthcare, less crime and clean water and environment,”Tuyen said.

To build a smart city requires settingup a shared database and open database eco-system, according to Tuyen.

To operate a mega city like HCM City,information must be sourced from various sources to create and executestrategies.

“This is an imperative to successfullydeploy the smart city’s operation centre, which will exploit all informationand data to enable the authorities to achieve comprehensive management.”

[HCM City gears towards smart city]

A simulation centre to forecastsocio-economic strategy should be set up along with an information securitycentre, he said.

The smart city will focus on fourareas: local government, public, enterprises, and social organisations.

For the local government, the smartcity will precisely meet development forecast needs and through buildinge-governance, information and data will be connected and shared to enhance thegovernment’s operational and management efficiency.

Enterprises will have a transparent, simpleand convenient environment and be provided with more information to make betterbusiness decisions.

The smart city will enabledissemination of information allowing service providers to efficiently meetdemand.

The public will be provided all informationneeded to make the best decisions. Interaction between the public and localgovernment will become easier and the public can oversee, manage and contributeideas for building the city.

People can enjoy benefits such aslow-priced electricity, convenient public transport, good healthcare, qualityeducation, clean water and environment, low crime and excellent entertainment.

Workers will have everything they needto ensure they can compete in the international market such as broadbandinternet; low-cost green energy; opportunities to foster their education,knowledge and skills; and reasonably-priced living and working space.

The smart city will help localgovernments efficiently use natural resources, improve services quality for thepublic.

The project will be implemented by the VietnamPost and Telecommunications Corporation after being piloted in districts 1 and12 and the Thu Thiem Urban Area in district 2.-VNA