Vietnam inaugurated the Vietnam-Finland IPP Office in Hanoi on November 24, four months after signing a bilateral agreement with the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

Minister of Science and Technology Hoang Van Phong and Finnish Ambassador to Vietnam Pekky Hyvonen.

The Finland-funded IPP project aims to improve Vietnam’s capacity in terms of science, technology and innovation, in order to help implement socio-economic targets and turn Vietnam into an industrialized economy by 2020.

The project will help Vietnam’s institutes, universities and businesses access Finland’s leading research institutes and technological innovations. In addition, Finnish scientists and businesses will establish a wide network of Vietnamese colleagues.

The project’s first stage will run for three years, 2009-2012 and will be funded by non-refundable aid worth Euro 3 million. The Vietnamese government will also contribute VND9.5 billion dong to this project.

This stage will focus on four goals: encouraging renovation and creativeness in the community of researchers and enterprises, raising the capability for sci-tech managers, developing an open creativeness forum and connecting the communities of researchers and sci-tech application of Vietnam and Finland.

VietNamNet/TNVN/VNE