Though science and technology development is considered the priority national policy, the budget allocating to science research works is even lower than the estimates for sports, culture and other fields.

How much does Vietnam spend on science and technology development?

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST), the total spending on science and technology development increased from 5890 billion dong in 2006 to 14,442 billion dong in 2011, or 2 percent of the total state’s spending and 0.5-0.6 percent of GDP. Of the amount, the spending on investment and development accounted for 35.5 percent, while regular expenses 48 percent, or 5019.7 billion dong in 2011.

MST Minister Nguyen Quan said that the sum of money per capita spent on the field and the figure on the total society’s investment on science both are among the lowest levels in the region and the world. The average level in the world is 1.9 percent of GDP, while developed economies spend 2.7-3.5 percent of GDP.

According to VUSTA, the union of scientific and technical associations, though science and technology development has been listed as the top priority task, the annual investments in the field are even lower than the budgets allocated to other fields, such as sports, culture or irrigation works.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong has noted that in other countries, money has not been divided to all people and all sectors, but the money would be driven to the top priority and most important fields.

However, Vietnam has not been following that way. Every year, all the 29 ministries, branches and 63 provinces and cities register their scientific research themes and expect the money from the state budget to carry out the research works. The Ministry of Planning and Investment always finds it hard to divide money, because it’s very difficult to decide whom to give money and whom to refuse.

Le Bo Linh, a senior official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), has provided some noteworthy figures. Every year, 400 billion dong has been divided to 7500 scientists, 150 scientific agricultural institutions and thousands of scientific research works. As a result, all scientists, institutions complain that they lack money to carry out research works.

Professor Nguyen Van Hieu, a well-known Vietnamese scientist, has pointed out that the mismanagement of relevant ministries and branches has led to big waste of capital. Hieu named some scientific research works in his field which have been left idle for the last many years, even though the projects cost big money, 200 billion dong.

A lot of projects have got heavy investment from the State budget, but have not proved their role in the reality. “Besides the national laboratory put under the control of MST, capitalized at 50 billion dong, there are three other projects capitalized at 500 billion dong, or they are 10 times more expensive that the national key laboratory. Meanwhile, I believe that MST does not know about the existence of the projects,” Hieu said.

“I strongly recommend that the government would assign MST to make decisions on the state funded scientific projects,” Hieu said.

MST’s Quan compared the figures to show the paradox in the society’s investment. The total society’s investment in science and technology development in Vietnam is 800 million dollars, which is even lower than the total investment of South Korean Samsung Group which spends 1 billion dollars a year on the field.

Source: Dat Viet/ VNN