VietNamNet Bridge – State agencies have been requested to
prioritize to buy information technology (IT) products from Vietnamese IT
firms. However, Vietnamese products still have been refused.
Following the Communist Party’s
Politburo initiated campaign “Buy Vietnamese,” the Ministry of Information and
Communication (MIC) in 2009 released the Circular No. 42, stipulating that
state agencies have to prioritize Vietnamese IT products when making procurement
packages with the state sourced money.
MIC emphasized that buying
Vietnamese would be a very effective way of practicing thrift for now, when
Vietnam tries to cut down public expenses.
Pham Kim Son, Director of the Da
Nang City Information and Communication Department, has affirmed that the
prices of Vietnamese software products and operation expenses is affordable to
the local budget.
When considering buying a
software piece for administration management for 56 wards and communes in Da
Nang, the city’s authorities decided to accept a Vietnamese product, which cost
300 million dong. Meanwhile, if the city had bought a foreign product, it might
have cost 4 billion dong.
However, there are not many
domestically made products which can satisfy domestic clients.
A survey conducted by MIC showed
that in 2011, state agencies spent 1.2 trillion dong on IT products. However,
the majority of the spending has gone to the pocket of foreign firms.
The report has also found out
that though Vietnamese products have increased their presence at state
agencies, the commercial value of the products remains modest if compared with
the value of foreign made ones.
As for computer products,
Vietnamese enterprises can only make desktop computers, while foreign firms
have been dominating other lucrative market segments – server, hard firewall
and switching equipment.
There are so many barriers that
have been blocked the way of Vietnamese enterprises. The two most popular
reasons cited by state agencies – they buyers – are that Vietnamese products
have low quality and that Vietnam still cannot make some kinds of high
technology products.
Under the current regulations,
state agencies would be required to explain why they import the products which
can be made domestically. In order to be able to import the products, the
buyers need to show the certificates granted by the IT responsible agencies.
However, in fact, the IT agencies
have been very rarely consulted whether enterprises should buy the products or
not.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of
Planning and Investment, in its forms of bidding document, does not comprise
any words reminding enterprises to prioritize to use Vietnamese products. “We
are working on with the Ministry of Planning and Investment on the topic,”
Duong said.
Dang The Trung, Director of DTT
Company said that in order to penetrate the lucrative market for state
agencies, enterprises need to have good consultancy techniques to help them
convince investors, while they should not only strive to sell what they have in
hands.
“Vietnamese enterprises still do
not pay appropriate attention to the soft skills, and consultancy technique
development. That explains why Vietnam remains inferior to foreign companies on
the home market.
Nguyen Thanh Lam, General
Director of FPT Software, has suggested that IT firms should join forces with
experienced partners to fulfill their investment projects. FPT Software, for
example, once cooperated with IBM and Oracle to develop the software pieces for
taxation and customs bodies.
Buu Dien
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