HCMC – The annual international event, InnoEx, will take place in HCMC on August 24 and 25, aiming to foster innovation and development in Vietnam and Southeast Asia’s thriving business community.
InnoEx is an annual international event promoting innovation and growth for the business community of Vietnam and the ASEAN region, and is being held for the first time in Ho Chi Minh City in August, combined with longstanding programs the Vietnam CEO Forum and the Startup Wheel contest.
InnoEx 2023 is being organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Young Business Association (YBA), the Business Startup Support Center (BSSC), and the Investment and Business Partners (IBP) Vietnam on August 24 and 25, with the theme “Innovation & Green Economy”.
“InnoEx 2023 will bring cooperative opportunities between strategic interdisciplinary partners and international investment funds, and access to information and real experience that are exclusive to small businesses with creative thinking,” said Ms. Truong Ly Hoang Phi, Head of the Organizing Board for InnoEx.
Mr. Pham Phu Truong, Chairman of the YBA and Vice Chairman of the Global Integration Business Consultants Company (GIBC), said business leaders play an especially key role in the process of change in order to energize the business engine.
“Innovation is very important because if we want to run fast we need a breakthrough with leadership,” he noted. “Nowadays, it is no longer ‘big fish eating small fish’, and I think it is ‘fast fish eating slow fish’.”
The innovation journey is a special trip without much precedent and experience for Vietnam’s business community. Thus, InnoEx 2023 and the Vietnam CEO Forum will bring together the answer to the question of who will have the tickets and how to drive the train sustainably into the future.
Mr. Nobuyuki Matsumoto, Head of the Representative Office of the Japan Trade Promotion Organization (JETRO) in Ho Chi Minh City, said that in an annual survey in 2022, 60% of Japanese companies said they wish to expand their businesses in Vietnam; higher than the average in ASEAN of 46.9%.
He added that the JETRO office in Ho Chi Minh City has the second-highest rate of annual visitors among its 76 facilities worldwide, in which Japanese corporations and businesses are particularly interested in finding and connecting with Vietnamese startups.
More than 2,000 startups from 34 countries and territories are participating in Startup Wheel 2023 and the best projects will introduce products within the framework of activities at InnoEx 2023. From here, corporations and businesses can find suitable solutions to connect to their ecosystem to promote their “innovation gene”.
