The capital of Hanoi was named the world’s 97th smartest city, moving up three places from its ranking in 2023, according to the 2024 Smart City Index.
The index was produced by the Swiss business school Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Centre’s Smart City Observatory in collaboration with the World Smart Sustainable Cities Organization (WeGO). It listed 142 cities in all and graded them on the basis of how they use advanced technology to improve the lives of their citizens.
Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Pham Duc Long said the decisive factor for smart city development will be data sharing.
Smart City Asia 2024, an international forum and exhibition on smart urban area development, was held in HCM City recently which gathered 150 businesses.
Vietnamese government officials have repeatedly affirmed that developing smart cities is a trend and is not a new matter in Vietnam. What the country needs to do is deploy the plan effectively long term for sustainable development.
Read more: VN: HCM City: Data sharing crucial for smart city development
Vietnam is facing a significant shortage of human resources, both in quantity and quality, for occupations related to the information and communication technology sector. As the nation is promoting the National Digital Transformation Programme to 2025, Vietnam aims to develop digital government, economy and society, the need to fill this gap has become more urgent than ever.
Vietnam has about 1.5 million workers in the information and communication technology field. The country currently has 168 universities and 520 vocational schools providing ICT training, with over 84,000 graduates annually.
Read more: VN: Training human resources crucial for digital transformation
Both Hanoi and HCM City received a rather poor scores of CCC in the Technology aspect, while in terms of Structures, the capital city Hanoi fared a little better than the southern economic center (CC compared to CCC).
Hanoi earned the 97th position in a global smart city ranking, up three places compared to last year, while HCM City slid down two places to 105th.
Read more: VN: Hanoi gains, while HCM City loses ground in global smart city ranking
Hanoi has moved up three places from last year to reach 97th in the 2024 Smart City Index, as compiled by the International Institute for Management Development of Switzerland.
In Asia alone, Hanoi ranks 20th out of 28 cities, behind several cities such as Bangkok (Thailand), Osaka (Japan), and above some cities such as Jakarta (Indonesia), and Mumbai (India).
Read more: VN: Hanoi moves three notches up smart city rankings