A lack of money has halted the implementation
of a Government project aiming to turn Viet Nam into an information technology
(IT) powerhouse by 2020.
The
project, approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in September 2010, has not
seen much progress.
Part of
the project's plan is to apply e-Government at all State-owned agencies from
communal to central levels.
But
according to the Ministry of Information and Communications, to date, 31 out of
63 provinces and cities across the country have not developed plans to
implement the project.
Most
local authorities say they don't know where or how to start.
Cao
Dang Phuong, head of the ministry's representative office in Da Nang City, said
only seven out of 16 provinces and cities in the central region had plans to
carry out the project.
"This
is a major project from the ministry. In order to make it feasible, localities
must map out their own plans. The slow implementation in each locality has
detained the overall progress," Phuong said.
Ho
Quang Thanh, director of the Department of Information and Communications in
central Nghe An Province, said that the biggest problem for most localities was
the lack of funds for implementation.
With a
wide area, the province will face many difficulties relating to infrastructure
development. Local authorities don't know where to appeal for more capital,
according to Thanh.
While
just approximately one-third of the provinces and cities across the country
could be self-financed, the rest mainly relied on support from the Government,
he added.
To Thi
Thu Huong, deputy director of the ministry's IT Department, said: "This is
a big project and to bring it into practice is a challenge as there is no
financial source for it."
The
ministry has registered to carry out part of the project in 2012 at a cost of
VND55.4 billion (US$2.6 million), but the lack of funding has hindered its
implementation.
Likewise,
for 32 localities that have worked out plans to carry out the project, the
plans remain on paper.
Nguyen
Van Hai from the ministry's IT Application Promotion Department told Thoi bao
Ngan Hang (Banking Times) newspaper that VND100 billion (US$4.8 million) had
been approved to execute plans at different ministries and localities this
year, but he claimed that was still too small an amount.
Hai, however,
also understood that the project was born at the time of economic downturn,
when the Government issued Decree No 11 that called for public spending cuts to
control inflation and stabilise the macro economy.
To
remove "obstacles" to the project's implementation, the ministry was
reviewing its financial mechanism and specifying tasks on the list of
priorities to propose to the Government for allocating funds.
Hai
also said the list would be submitted to Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien
Nhan within this month, so some could be carried out next year.
The
project's targets
By
2020, the IT industry is expected to contribute between 8 to 10 per cent of the
country's GDP and its revenue growth to be doubled or tripled that of the GDP
growth rate.
Up to
30 per cent of IT students who graduate from universities will be qualified to
fill international market openings by 2015, and 80 per cent by 2020.
The
number of internet users will account for over 50 per cent of the population by
2015 and over 60 per cent by 2020.
Domestic
enterprises are urged to design and produce equipment to replace imported
products by 2015 to make Viet Nam among the top 10 suppliers of software
processing service and digital content.
The
broadband infrastructure will be expanded to almost all rural villages and
hamlets, and the mobile broadband network will cover up to 95 per cent of the
national population by 2020.
Viet
Nam is also set to emerge among the top three leading nations in the UN ranking
in readiness for e-Government. The Vietnamese e-Government is set to rank above
average in the world.
VNS
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