Leverage for development of ICT industry

ABO/NDO – Over recent years, the information and communications technology (ICT) sector continued to be one of the most important economic and technical sectors in the country.

The ICT sector's revenue was over US$112 billion in 2019.

According to a report by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC), the sector’s revenue recorded US$112 billion in 2019, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%. The sector also contributed nearly VND54 trillion to the State budget and created jobs to over one million workers.

ICT commodities, such as mobile phones, computers, hardwareand electronic items, continued to rank among the top ten major export products for the country, bringing the whole sector’s trade surplus to around US$28 billion. However, the revenue from foreign investment enterprises accounted for 98% of the sector’s total export revenue. Meanwhile, there have barely been any electronic and telecommunications products that were actually designed and made in Vietnam.

However, the digital content industry gained a modest revenueof around US$850 million, of which export revenue accounted for nearly 93% because Vietnam enterprises have not yet exploited the domestic market, which was completely dominated by large cross-border platforms such as Facebook and Google.

Under the ICT development strategy planned by the MoIC, the ICT must become a key economic sector that has a high turnover and large production value as well as leads in exports and contribution to the country’s GDP. Accordingly, enterprises should proactively master technologies in manufacturing IT products and solutions, electronics and important telecommunications equipment, to serve the country.

In addition, the ICT industry should ensure the provision of digital products and solutions for the digital transformation and development as well as the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution of the country, towards developing Vietnam into a major exporter of software and information technology services around the world. The strategy also set out some specific target numbers, including US$120 billion of the export turnover of the ICT industry by 2025. In addition, it is essential to increase the number of IT enterprises to 50,000 and ICT workers with prodigious skills and knowledge to 1.3 million.

Experts have said that in order to reach the targets srt, it is absolutely necessary to develop policies and mechanisms to encourage ICT enterprises to strengthen solutions and products that meet major orientations. The relevant agencies should incite motivation for the development of IT enterprises, especially those that will focus on studying and making core technologies.

On the other hand, law makers should amend and supplement preferential tax policies for the ICT industry, notably software; as well as develop incentive policies for the investment in association with technology transfer and training of high-quality human resources, while formulating priority policies for the development of supporting industry (hardware). In addition, regulations on procurement of IT products towards “moving from priority to preference” need to be built; meanwhile, the international cooperation, trade promotion and market access undertakings should be enhanced to widely promote Vietnam’s ICT products around the world.

(Source: NDO)