Hanoi (VNA) – Former FinnishPrime Minister Esko Aho delivered a presentation in Hanoi on September 18 aboutFinland’s experience in economic development based on innovation.

As part of the Vietnam-Finland InnovationPartnership Programme Phase 2 to improve the capacity of Vietnamesepolicymakers, the event was a follow-up to a presentation made by Prof. GoranRoos in late August.

Opening the event, Minister of Science andTechnology Chu Ngoc Anh said to serve demand for renovation, managers andscience-technology policymakers should improve science-technology policies intandem with sustainable economic development in Vietnam.

In his speech, Aho underscored the need tochange ideas about knowledge, master future technology and devise strategiesfor innovation.

In the afternoon the same day, Aho andleaders of the Ministry of Science and Technology discussed science-technology developmentpolicies used for economic development.

Aho is also former Chairman of the FinnishInnovation Fund under the Parliament of Finland and former Vice President ofNokia Corporation. He was part of an experts’ group to build the EU’sinnovation policies and chaired a group to propose Finland’s innovationstrategy for 2008.

In recent years, Finlandhas been among the world’s top 10 countries in terms of the Global InnovationIndex and Global Competitiveness Index. The country was also ranked high inindexes scoring the efficiency of public organisations, tertiary education,corporate innovation and public-private partnership.-VNA