VietNamNet Bridge – The Government is running the national programme on information technology (IT) application which is expected to cost 1700 billion dong over five years. However, experts have warned that there will be many difficulties during the process of implementation.

Levers and obstacles

Vietnamese IT firms always complain that they do not have clients. It is estimated that the total revenue of Vietnam’s IT market in 2010 would reach $7.5 billion, an increase of 21 percent over 2009 ($6.4 billion). However, the revenue is brought by foreign invested enterprises, while domestic IT firms remain “the small fish swimming in the big sea”.

Small and medium enterprises do not pay much attention to the use of IT in their work, while state agencies do not use Vietnam-made products, even though the Government has decided to focus on developing the domestic market.

Experts all agree that state agencies would be potential clients who could act as the “lever” for the implementation of the IT application programme. They stress that state agencies are truly the “gold mine” for domestic IT firms to exploit. With state agencies being big clients, Vietnamese IT firms will be able to grow up and swim well in the big sea.

However, it seems that IT firms are still unable to take full advantage of the opportunity. As the result, domestic IT firms remain small, while state agencies have been slow in applying IT.

In HCM City, Nguyen Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of the Information and Telecommunication Department, said the budget for IT development has never been used up. Every year, only 70-80 percent of the budget is disbursed. Tuan said that the overly complicated procedures make a lot of IT projects unfeasible.

In Da Nang City, the problem lies in the lack of money. Though the city has tens billion dong a year to develop IT, the sum seems like nothing if compared to the huge demand. An official of the city said that tens billion dong would be enough to initiate the projects, but more money is needed to run them.

Meanwhile, in Hanoi, what causes headache to state agencies is the lack of qualified staff. The problem is that qualified people do not want to work for state agencies only to get a modest pay. Meanwhile, they receive attractive invitations from private enterprises, especially foreign invested enterprises, which offer high salaries.

How much would be enough?

The annual budget for IT development accounts for two percent of the budget reserved for science and technology research. The money, experts say, still cannot meet the requirements for IT development. HCM City, for example, has the total budget spending of 120 trillion dong, of which 2400 billion dong are reserved for science and technology development. This means that only 100 billion dong can be used for IT development programmes.

To date, a lot of localities and local agencies still do not have electronic information portals. Only 46.4 percent of state employees use emails in their work, and 96.6 percent of provinces and cities have websites. However, many do not attract visitors, because they are poor in information and the information available is often not up-to-date.

Everyone understands that if Vietnamese IT firms and state agencies can cooperate well, this will bring big benefit to both sides. However, they are still hesitant to cooperate, because they do not trust each other.

A senior official in HCM City said that he does not like to use made-in-Vietnam software, because there always are some problems with the products. He added that it would be a big waste of time and money to use domestic products. Meanwhile, domestic IT firms complain that they are facing too many barriers, especially in administrative procedures.

Source: Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon