3G License Announcement of Vietnam in September
Influx of Foreign Direct Investments - Strong Attraction for Investment in Vietnam
Vietnam Maintains Stable Economic Growth
Growth of Vietnam's Software Industry
Increasing Usage of Online Public Services in Vietnam
August 12, 2008
3G License Announcement of Vietnam in September
As the announcement of 3G license is approaching (end of September), the race between companies which can get the license to provide third-generation services in Vietnam becomes tense. The implementation of 3G will help promote the development of broadband and various applications in daily life and in business. Moreover, 3G will be timely support for 2G since 2G frequency bands are getting exhausted.
According to the Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Le Nam Thang, the opportunity is equal for all telecom service providers which already have 2G licenses, not distinguishing between CDMA or GSM-based networks. According to the standards set by the Ministry of Information and Communications, the four winners must satisfy the criteria on finance and investment, business, human resources and training.
Besides the CDMA-based networks, EVN Telecom and S-Fone, which have applied 3G on one frequency band, three GSM-based networks, VinaPhone, Viettel and MobiFone, have partly shown advantages in market share, network facilities. GSM-based networks also have advantages over CDMA-based networks in roaming service. Some experts say the race for 3G licenses is actually a competition among the five above companies. But GTel and HT Mobile may be surprises. Though GTel doesn't supply telecom services yet and HT Mobile has changed its technology from CDMA to GSM, the two companies also satisfy the financial and investment criteria required.
(Source: VNPT)
Influx of Foreign Direct Investments - Strong Attraction for Investment in Vietnam
According to Ministry of Planning and Investment, for the first seven months of the year, Vietnam was able to attract 654 foreign direct investment projects worth an estimated US$45 billion. The FDI attraction of the country increased 37.3% against the same period last year. The high inflows of foreign investment have helped Vietnam to create more jobs and reduce the trade deficit and also revitalize the country. In the first half of this year, the foreign investment accounted for 65% of the country's GDP.
Not only a sharp increase in seen in FDI attraction, FDI disbursement in the first seven months of 2008 has also reported a 45% growth compared to the same period last year. It showed that Vietnam maintained its advantages in investment and is attractive to investors despite the global economic slowdown.
In the meantime, some measures are made to spur FDI disbursement continuously in the country. The Ministry of Planning and Investment's Foreign Investment Agency has set up three working groups to assist provincial authorities in clearing hurdles for foreign-invested projects in a bid to prop up disbursements. The working groups would be dispatched to provinces on Aug to look into the implementation of foreign direct investment (FDI) projects, especially those worth US$50 million or more.
(Source: Vietnam Net Bridge, Vietnam Briefing)
Vietnam Maintains Stable Economic Growth
The economic growth of Vietnam was kept stable in July and the first seven months of this year which showed sign of recovery in the country's economy. According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), industrial production of Vietnam in July recorded increment with 16.1% over the same month last year. The export and import turnover also slightly increased comparing with June and year-on-year. According to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, trade deficit was reported at 725 million USD in June as compared with 1.9 billion USD in May and 3.2 billion USD in the previous month. The Vietnam's trade deficit dropped to the lowest level in June since early year. Improvements in the trade balance have created internal strength for Vietnam and with it the short-term difficulty can be solved and the national economy will recover soon. Meanwhile, the stock market, the VN-Index showed a continuous increase and upward trend.
Stable growth of Vietnam economy showed its favorable conditions for foreign investment and business development.
(Source: Vietnam Net Bridge, CPV)
Growth of Vietnam's Software Industry
Vietnam has attracted world attention by developing its software human resources. With cultural similarities, Vietnam is considered the third strategic partner, after India and China, of Japan. The country's software industry has had a consistently high growth rate, around 30-40% per year, accounting for 0.4% of GDP, with over 720 companies and nearly 9,000 IT engineers trained at colleges and universities each year. More and more Vietnamese devote themselves to software engineering due to the bright prospect and huge software market in the country. Ogawa Takeo, former Chairman of Hitachi Software, said Vietnam will be the major market of Hitachi Software in the near future. At present, Vietnam accounts for 23% of the firm's overseas orders. The rapid growth of the software industry in Vietnam showed its potential in market.
(Source: Vietnam Net Bridge, TBKTVN)
Increasing Usage of Online Public Services in Vietnam
Vietnam has made a big hop in the world's e-government rankings due to increased website usage and telecom infrastructure upgrades. The Vietnam on World IT map 2008 report by the Ho Chi Minh City Computer Association said the country has made remarkably improvements in United Nations Public Administration Network or the UNPAN's e-government index. Vietnam's 91st ranking in the 2008 e-government index is 16 grades higher than previous years. The index consists of web measuring, telecommunications infrastructure and human capital indexes. Of which, the Vietnam's Web Measure index was 0.4448, higher than 0.2231 of 2005 and its telecommunications infrastructure index was 0.1081 compared to 0.0489 in 2005. In the ASEAN region, Vietnam ranked sixth behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Brunei and head of Indonesia.
A Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) report in July said the development of online public services had been promoted. People are offered more and more advanced online public services and developed habits on using Internet service. More confidence is developed in Internet usage. With strong government's encouragement on Internet usage, enormous business opportunities in ICT market will be driven.
(Source: General Statistics Office of Vietnam, Vietnam Net Bridge)
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