In the next five years, Vietnam could process nearly 40 million e-payment transactions per year, 40 times higher than the current capacity of the local banking sector, according to Le Hong Minh, chairman of technology company VNG.

Vietnam’s digital technology sector has huge potential for development, especially when the extent of internet penetration and the percentage of smart phones and social media users in the country is higher than the global average and countries with similar development level, Minh said at a conference discussing Vietnam’s internet ecosystem in Singapore on April 13.

However, Minh said Vietnam is facing fundamental challenges to make a leap in developing digital technology, referring to the lack of IT applications in local enterprises and qualified personnel.

Vu Minh Khuong, a Vietnamese-origin lecturer at the National University of Singapore, highly regarded Vietnam’s rapid economic growth, while stressing the necessity of digitalizing and reforming the economy to maintain the growth momentum.

Khuong reckoned IT application would have substantial impacts on Vietnam’s market growth.

VNG’s Deputy Director in charge of cloud computing Vu Minh Tri said huge investment capital is required for developing infrastructure, averaging 60% of a country’s GDP.

In this context, Tri predicted the growing demand for digitalizing the process of infrastructure management, which opens up opportunities for cloud services to develop and access this huge amount of capital.

Alex Smith, head of Microsoft’s Azure Cloud, said cloud computing services would contribute significantly to improving Vietnam’s business environment in a fair and transparent manner, which could be done through the removal of barriers for small and medium enterprises in accessing markets.

This is an important factor to create a competitive environment to attract domestic and foreign investors, Smith concluded.

Hanoitimes