Vietnam holds great potential for cultural industry development

This marks the first conference of its kind and holds particularly important significance for the future development of Vietnamese cultural industries.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha and Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung also co-chaired the event which was connected online to 63 provinces and cities nationwide.

As part of his opening speech, PM Chinh highlighted Vietnamese culture as the result of thousands of years of creative labour and resilient struggle to build and defend the country of the Vietnamese ethnic community. It is also the result of exchanging and absorbing the essence of many global civilizations to constantly improve ourselves.

​Vietnamese culture has molded the soul, spirit, and bravery of the nation, thus brightening its own glorious history.

Cultural industries refer to industries which produce artistic and creative products bearing a tangible or intangible nature, through exploiting cultural values and intellectual, socially, and culturally meaningful products and services which gain economic benefits.

Globally, cultural industry development is taking place strongly and is a trend which is gradually becoming the important driving force in promoting the socio-economic   development of many countries, he went on to say.

The PM said that over recent years, the Party and State have issued and effectively carried out many guidelines, policies, and laws to boost cultural development culture and cultural industries.

The strategy for developing Vietnamese cultural industries to 2020, with a vision head to 2030, affirms that cultural industries represent an important component of the national economy.

The State creates favourable conditions to attract maximum resources from businesses and society as a means of developing cultural industries. The strategy identifies a total of 12 areas of cultural industries, while also setting goals of carrying out these fields by 2020 and 2030.

The 13th Party Congress sets out the task of urgently implementing focused development of cultural industries and cultural services on the basis of identifying and promoting the soft power of Vietnamese culture.

The PM stated that, with special attention given by the Party and State and the involvement of all levels, sectors, and localities, over time cultural industries have gradually become increasingly important service economic sectors.

The investment of capital in cultural industries has therefore promoted the cultural industry market to make new strides, positively contributing to socio-economic development as a result.

However, compared to several other industries the nation's cultural industries have not yet fully been exploited in line with their potential and advantages.

In order for cultural industries to develop both quickly and sustainably, thus effectively exploiting its potential and strengths, there needs to be a strong transformation from awareness to action, innovation in thinking, and breakthroughs in working methods towards building the Vietnamese cultural industry, PM Chinh emphasized.

He underlined the need to discuss, evaluate, and thoroughly analyze the results achieved, along with the shortcomings and limitations faced in the development of cultural industries over the past time in order to pinpoint causes and lessons learned.

Furthermore, the PM asked participants to propose specific, feasible, and breakthrough solutions, clearly outline roadmaps to overcome current shortcomings, especially in terms of mechanisms and policies aimed at attracting social resources for the development of cultural industries.

It can be considered essential to strengthen links and co-ordination between ministries, branches, and localities in effectively protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights, as well as adopting policies on encouraging and creating favourable conditions for infrastructure development coupled with technological application, capital investment, and digital transformation, PM Chinh continued.

He also underscored the necessity of building a cultural industry development strategy for the new period with a long-term vision and more synchronous solutions in place.