VietNamNet Bridge – To make IT and communication one of the three breakthroughs in the socio-economic development in the next 5-10 years, the education system needs to be reformed the guests of VietNamNet’s Vietnam Economic Forum said.

In the first part of the discussion, the guests review the achievements of Vietnam’s IT and communication sector in the last 10 years and identify the existing problems.

In the second part, the guests discuss the suggested solutions to develop the IT and communication sector.

Journalist Binh Minh: The IT and communication sector has made a great contribution to the GDP growth. Dr, Mai Liem Truc cited the example of Viettel and MobiFone which were listed among the biggest tax payers in the last two years. This shows that  high-technology can also make great contribution to the national economy, even greater than banking and finance,real estate or oil and gas.

Dr. Mai Liem Truc: There is a story about a German officer who, during the occupation of France, arrested Picasso. The officer turned out to be fond of art. Picasso drew a painting and asked for $20,000 for it. The officer asked why he had set such a high price. And Picasso answered that in order to be able to draw the painting in two hours he had to spend 40 years learning to paint.

I recall this anecdote to say that we need another way of approaching the issue when dealing with a knowledge-based industry. I think that this is one of the biggest problems that have still not settled.

For a long time, we have been setting norms for the software industry. However, in many cases, the values of art works and the values of software products cannot be determined by norms. We should apply the bidding mechanism. This is the best solution. An official cannot sit in his office and calculate how many hours were needed to create a software product.

I think that the figures on the turnover and the tax paid by IT and communication enterprises only show the business effectiveness of the enterprises. Meanwhile, their actual contribution is bigger. The IT and communication industry have been facilitating all social and economic activities, from learning to playing, doing business to state management.

As Mr Long said, the Ministry of Planning and Investment now grants business registration certificates via Internet, so businessmen do not have to go to state agencies. This is even more valuable than the 8 percent contribution to the GDP or the 20 trillion dong worth of tax paid by the two enterprises.

Journalist Binh Minh: What should we do to make Vietnam a power in IT and communication as the Prime Minister decided in the Decision No. 1755?

Nguyen Long: The plan to making Vietnam a power in IT and communication is just a framework. There are six big issues which require the cooperation of all forces in the society. The Ministry of Information and Communication has been making every effort to realize this project, considering this an important political task. However, we need detailed actions. We need the way of thinking suitable to the knowledge-based economy. It is not simply like building a house.

The plan was approved in September 2010 and I hope that it will be concretized because it touches upon many key sectors of the national economy.

Journalist Binh Minh: What should we do to encourage Vietnamese IT enterprises to develop their brands and introduce their products to the world?

Dr. Mai Liem Truc: In order to reach out to the world market, first of all, enterprises have to consolidate their brands on the domestic market. Enterprises will fail to succeed in the world if their products are not accepted at home. The enterprises should understand that domestic market has a huge potential with nearly 100 million people.

Viettel has been successfully penetrating foreign telecom and Internet markets, while FPT gained initial achievements in Japan and some other countries. However, before succeeding in foreign markets, the two enterprises had established their strong positions in Vietnam.

In order to have strong brands names on the domestic market, enterprises should not use the slogan “Vietnamese people should use Vietnamese products”. It is now the age of global integration, when there is no clear boundary among the markets.

The Prime Minister has decided that Vietnam needs to become an IT powerful country. This shows the determination of the State and the Government. However, the will needs to be concretized in laws and policies. Meanwhile, enterprises also need to be determined to deal with difficulties and grab opportunities. And the third important force, besides the State and enterprises, is Vietnamese consumers.

Nowadays, many IT and telecom companies are developing very well, but they foresee that the domestic market may become saturated in the near future. Therefore, they have to make outward investment to survive.

Tthis is not easy, but I think we have good opportunities. It is a knowledge-based industry, therefore, we don’t need much material investment. In order to develop software products, we only need computers with Internet connection, and brainpower.

And for that we need to focus on the human resource development. The Prime Minister’s speech delivered last week mentioned three breakthroughs for the country’s development, which include the renovation of the education system.

Journalist Binh Minh: Ten years ago, information technology was  a popular major at universities. However, it seems that young people have changed their minds. They now prefer finance and banking, real estate or other majors. What should we do to attract young people to the IT industry?

Nguyen Long: Vietnamese students used to very good at and gainhigh achievements in international IT Olympiads. However, last year, Vietnamese students did not succeed because the online marking system did not support the works made in pascal programming language. This is a sad example. The whole world is using Java, why don’t we use Java?

Besides, I cannot understand why students, who want to study IT at university have to take mathematics, physics and chemistry exams, not mathematics, informatics and foreign languages?

other policies are also very important, including the salary mechanism.

Dr. Mai Liem Truc: It is quite normal that some careers are more popular than others at certain times. However, the problem of Vietnam is that people lack self-confidence and they always follow the others.

Many of the world’s rich people are working in the field of IT, while in Vietnam, rich people mostly work in the real estate sector. I feel sad that the richest person in the IT sector ranks only 16^th in the list of top stock millionaires.

It is true that the quality of students registering to study IT majors has been degrading, which worries policy makers. However, I think that this will change in some more years.

Vietnam Economic Forum