The panorama of the working session with Australian experts on venture investment
In the working session, PhD. Jerome Donovan –Coordinator of International MBA Program, Swinburne Technique University said that within the context that Vietnam’s economy has currentlybeen developing strongly, support provided to Vietnam’s start-up ecosystem as well as linkages between the State and private sector to establish the network of enterprise incubation units in Vietnam are really essential. Then the established network can develop strongly and attractdomestic and foreign investments.
According to PhD. Jerome Donovan, when he discussed about venture investment, venture investors for start-up enterprises need to link with incubation units because these will be the foundation to support new enterprises and enterprises during their start-up stage to develop through services as training, management or provision of working space. These incubation units are not research area or S&T area but places where corporations, governments or laboratories of universities and small companies are located … incubations units need to establish foundation factors as services, skill development, initial capital and coordination …
According to PhD Eryadi Masli, in the United State in 2012 there were 1,250 incubation units with 41,000 start-up enterprises. After 5 years 87% of enterprises received support and 44% of enterprises which didn’t receive support from incubation units were successful in their start-up, created 200,000 jobs and achieved the annual turnover of USD 15 billion. In Asia, specifically in Indonesia there were 32 incubation units, in 2005 only 9 incubation units existed and currently there are only 3 incubation units. The failure is due to the lack of necessary skills, sustainable financial model and of bureaucratic manner.
Among the Southeast Asian start-up community, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand have had rather dynamic start-up activities. However, for investors, Indonesia has been the most interested due to its big population and economic scale, internet community is significant so investment funds hope that the market will blow up. In Vietnam, venture investment funds have appeared for 10 years. In addition to some founders of enterprises who have been successful and active in accessing investment capital from the funds, many Vietnamese start-up enterprisesstill have beencareful. One factor affecting the development of Vietnam start-up community is that there are many issues relating to policies which have obstructed foreign capital to Vietnam (foreign exchange management, regulations on foreign investment...).
Concluding the working session, Minister Nguyễn Quân highly appreciated issues discussed by experts on venture investment. The Minister said that Vietnam has started to begin its market economy. Regarding the venture investment, Vietnam has currently started initial studies due to its inappropriate legal system. Therefore, the establishment of venture investment funds with the State’s support is a big challenge. However, it is the time that Vietnam can’t delay any longer in venture investment activities as well as in technology and enterprise incubation activities, until the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) is signed with Vietnam, Vietnamese enterprises will become very important partner of countries in the two sides of Pacific Ocean.
Swinburne Technique University is one among of the top 10 Australian universities and among the top 3 universities in Melbourne. Swinburne is ranked among the top 400 leading worlduniversities in 2012and 100 Physics according to the Academic Ranking World Universities(ARWU). The University has training programs for Bachelor, Post-graduate, Master and PhD degrees in fields of Sciences, Techniques, Literature, Psychology and Social Science, in which strong professions are identified including Economics, Commerce, Business, Technique, Information Technology, Computer Science, Design.
In Vietnam, Swinburne has closely followed and cooperated with the program “Way to Olympia Peak since the first years. Swinburne is also implementing many attractive scholarship program for outstanding students and pupils in 2014.