Investment in science and technology reaches 2% of total state budget expenditure

(Baonghean) - According to the Ministry of Finance, in the period of 2011 - 2015, despite difficult economic conditions, the State budget's investment in science and technology ensured 2% of total State budget expenditure, achieving an average growth rate of 17%/year and was one of the areas with the highest growth rate in State budget expenditure.

Checking the amount of money transacted at Viettin Ben Thuy Bank (Vinh city). Photo: Thu Huyen

Considering the whole period, total state budget expenditure for science and technology was 5.6 times higher than that of the 2001-2005 period and 2.2 times higher than that of the 2006-2010 period.

However, in terms of absolute value, investment in science and technology is still not high. In 2015, investment from the state budget for science and technology reached more than 23 trillion VND (equivalent to over 1 billion USD). Total investment of the whole society for science and technology in Vietnam is currently estimated at less than 1% of GDP, while Korea is 3.1% and the world average is 2.1%.

Conversion is slow

Along with the change in awareness of the key role of science and technology in socio-economic development, in recent years the legal environment for this field has also been adjusted to create more favorable conditions and incentives for science and technology activities. In 2005, with the goal of innovating the management mechanism and improving the operational efficiency of public science and technology organizations, the Government issued regulations on autonomy and self-responsibility for performing tasks, organizing the apparatus, staffing and finance for public science and technology units.

In addition, S&T organizations are also entitled to production and business like enterprises, are granted business registration certificates, and use and enjoy all incentives like enterprises. The promulgation of the autonomous regulation mechanism has liberated the potential of human resources and potential of S&T organizations, which is considered as the "10-contract mechanism" in S&T and is always supplemented and perfected to maximize the creative force, promote and create conditions to link S&T results with practice; contribute to fundamentally changing the operation methods of public S&T organizations, encouraging S&T organizations to focus on applied results, linked to organizations using S&T results, linked to the market...

According to statistics from the Ministry of Science and Technology, by 2015, out of a total of 642 public science and technology organizations, 193 science and technology organizations operating in the field of basic research, strategy, and policy have implemented transformation (accounting for 30%); 295 organizations have switched to self-financing (accounting for 46%); 154 organizations are developing or submitting to competent authorities for approval a project to implement the autonomy mechanism (accounting for 24%).

The above data shows that the implementation of these regulations has had positive results, with 76% of science and technology organizations completing the transformation and operating under an autonomous and self-responsible mechanism.

However, compared to the Government's target of completing the conversion of all public S&T organizations to autonomy by December 31, 2009, this has not been achieved. Up to now, there are still 154 S&T organizations (accounting for 24%) that have not completed the conversion.

Urgent synchronization

In order to promptly, uniformly, synchronously and comprehensively implement the provisions of this Decree, the Ministry of Finance has submitted to the Prime Minister for promulgation of specific regulations on the contents of work, deadlines, progress of completion and responsibilities of ministries and localities. Accordingly, 7 ministries are assigned to develop and submit to the Government for promulgation of decrees regulating the autonomy mechanism of public service units in the following specialized fields: Health; education and training; vocational training; culture, sports and tourism; information, communication and press; science and technology, economic and other career fields.

Along with that, the Government also assigned ministries, central agencies and localities to urgently develop a list of public career services using the State budget in the management field; plan the network of public career units providing public career services; develop a system of specialized economic and technical norms for public career services managed by the State; develop criteria and standards for public career services; develop a mechanism for ordering and bidding for public career services...

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