Vietnam has bright ICT outlook
By Van Oanh - The Saigon Times Daily
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| The display booth of Vietnam’s telecom giant VNPT attracts many visitors at the World Information Technology Forum, or WITFOR 2009, in Hanoi on Wednesday - Photo: Van Oanh |
HANOI – The prospects of Vietnam’s information and communication technology (ICT) sector are good, heard the fourth World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR 2009) in Hanoi on Wednesday.
Houlin Zhao, deputy chairperson of the International Communication Union, said at the forum that the country had a promising ICT sector given the Government’s resolve to develop the sector.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, addressing the opening ceremony, said 
the Government had an ambitious agenda to prop up the sector.
The Government has chosen the ICT sector as a spearhead of the economy to speed up the country’s industrialization and modernization, he said.
He noted ICT is considered a key driver for the country to integrate in the global economy and improve the efficiency of government, for people to improve knowledge and for businesses to cut costs.
Vietnam is drawing up plans to become an ICT stronghold in the world by making the legal environment transparent, developing ICT infrastructure, boosting the ICT industry and ICT applications in socioeconomic development, and developing human resources. The Government will make efforts to create a dynamic ICT environment that will offer room for multinational ICT firms as well as domestic firms.
He also stresses the importance of the event, as WITFOR 2009 offers a great chance for the participants to assess the role of ICT in coping with global challenges for sustainable development such as the use of energy and natural resources, climate change, epidemics, poverty and the economic crisis.
He said that through the forum, representatives from participating countries would share experiences and draw up cooperation programs to boost sustainable socioeconomic development in their respective countries.
The three-day event is co-hosted by the Ministry of Information and Communications and the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) at Hanoi’s National Convention Center.
During the forum, more than 130 domestic and foreign speakers will present reports on topics such as ICT for sustainable development, ICT for development policies, open source software, the role of the state, the business and the society in ICT development, gender issues, and public-private partnerships.
Besides official working sessions, the event will host other programs including High Level ICT Public-Private Dialogue, PCs for Life, ICT Exhibition and ICT Networking. The first is an open talk among representatives of the Vietnamese government, and the world’s leading ICT corporations. The second aims to set up a fund of PCs for rural people, especially children. The third is an international ICT exhibition featuring state-of-the-art technologies from famous companies in the region and in the world, while the last is about a network connecting Vietnamese and international ICT enterprises, organizations, training centers.
As an international event, the forum will position Vietnam as an attractive nation for foreign ICT investors.
WITFOR takes place every two years on the initiative of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) to increase cooperation, support developing countries and promote ICT applications to socioeconomic areas so as to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and realize the Action Plan adopted at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).