VietNamNet Bridge – After years of focusing on the quantity of growth, the Quang Trung Software City has begun shifting its attention to the quality of growth and planning a Quang Trung Software City chain model.

An artist's impression of QTSC in the future.

Like many other companies in the economy, the business performance last year of Quang Trung Software City Development Company, the operator of the Quang Trung Software City (QTSC) in HCMC, was not as good as expected. The protracted global economic turbulence sank major software markets such as the U.S., the EU and Japan into further troubles, thus impacting on Vietnam’s software industry.

QTSC made a couple of achievements last year, though. Hewlett Packard (HP) commissioned a project in the software park. KDDI, one of the leading information and communication technology (ICT) firms in the world, set up shop there as well.

“The QTSC brand has been gaining increasing popularity worldwide, thereby facilitating the participation of Vietnam’s software industry in the global supply chain,” says Chu Tien Dung, chairman of Quang Trung Software City Development Company.

QTSC organized a lot of activities to promote business inside the park. The company and its partners held 16 ICT events, with 150,000 organizations and individuals taking part. QTSC experts joined Vietnamese delegations to India, Korea and Japan to explore commercial and investment opportunities. To reach out to more ICT multinationals, QTSC re-designed its website in a way that allows it to stay connected with social networks.

Last year alone, 74 business missions from around the world visited QTSC to sound out business prospects. The software park is now home to 32 investors and 106 IT and software companies, including 56 foreign IT entrepreneurs, with 24,800 people working and studying there. In HCMC’s first such software park, there are seven ICT schools.

The QTSC chain in the pipeline

Quang Trung Software City Development Company is working on a project to build Quang Trung Software City 2 as part of a broader plan to develop a QTSC chain. The project will go before the HCMC People’s Committee for approval this year. The QTSC chain development plan is envisaged constructing a number of QTSC parks in other parts of the country. To this end, QTSC is putting the finishing touches on an e-Government project ordered by the northern province of Nam Dinh.

This year the company is looking to attract at least an ICT firm on the Fortune 500 list and start construction of two fresh projects. Chairman Dung says that bringing more ICT multinationals to the park is one of the top priorities this year and within the roadmap to create the global supply chain.

Discussing the QTSC development plan, Nguyen Huu Le, chairman of TMA Solutions, which is based in QTSC, says that after 12 years of operation, QTSC is now seen as a point of convergence of ICT multinationals as the park meets international standards and requirements of software processing development in the world.

Given the economic slump, QTSC is lending a helping hand to businesses in the park to ride out difficulties and thus stabilize operations. Through the CEO Club, HR Club and workshops, QTSC can create conditions for enterprises in the park to find business chances.

The company will also work with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to boost the publicity at home and abroad of the QTSC brand and the ICT companies in the park. It is also working with the Ministry of Information and Communications, HCMC Department of Information and Communications and Korean International Cooperation Agency to run human resources supporting programs for enterprises. Ngo Van Toan, deputy general manager of GCS, says that the company highly appreciates what QTSC has done to support it over the years, from infrastructure to business connection and market expansion.

At the same time, QTSC will write to the city authorities seeking help to pull the enterprises at the park out of the doldrums. Reviewing investment credit policy for projects in QTSC is needed. Realty transfer procedures, temporary import for re-export of equipment and support for research and development activities are among the other suggestions.

Dung says that all these plans and suggestions are aimed at making QTSC the most prestigious software processing and ICT area in Vietnam and in the region in the near future.

Source: SGT