The Minister of Post & Telematics has just issued the Directive no 07/CT-BCVT dated July 7th 2007 on the orientation of Vietnam ICT development strategy for the next ten years 2011-2020. The Directive is considered as the outline for the fourth development stage - the “taking-off” stage of the Post, Telecommunication (PT) and Information Technology (IT) in our country.
Last three stages with many progresses
The Directive summarized the achievements of the over-20-year innovation process of PT & IT in Vietnam, which can be divided into three stages.
In 1986, when the economy was still under the System of budget subsidies, Vietnam PT & IT actively implemented the “breaking through” strategy, moving to the “self-borrowing, self-paying and self-responsible” mechanism. After a short time, Vietnam PT & IT already proved its stable growth in particular and the important role in the socio-economic development in general.
Since 1993, Vietnam PT & IT started to implement the “speeding up” strategy for the period of 1993-2000 with the guideline of “directly approaching the modern technology and using the external force to develop the internal force”. During this period, PT & IT has entirely digitalized the telecommunication network, developed new services, extended the services to rural areas, and the business productivity grew rapidly.
Coming into new century, since 2001, Vietnam PT & IT has profited opportunities, made the full use of its advantages, timely implemented the “Integrating and developing” strategy with the motto of “making the best of its internal force, building competitive environment, and integrating into the international economy”. During the period of 2001-2010, Vietnam PT & IT has also changed its administrative management method as well as business management one, and has gained initiative in the international integration. Also during this period the monopoly has been removed, PT & IT market has been opened with a full competition among all types of services.
After the last three periods, thank to the successful implementation of the important strategies, Vietnam PT & IT has gain many impressive achievements: the telephone penetration rate is nearly 50%, 100% communes have telephones, Internet users reaches over 20% of the population, the average radius of postal points is less than 2.3 km; The growth rate of IT industry is higher and higher: the average growth rate of the hardware industry is from 20% to 30 %, of the software industry and services is from 30% to 40%. Vietnam PT & IT has made a significant contribution to improve the management capacity in production & business, to eliminate hunger & reduce poverty, to narrow the digital divide and to ensure the safety and the security of the national information network as well.
“Taking off” - human resources is the key factor
According to the Directive, despite many great progresses achieved, Vietnam PT & IT has not been developed as well as its potentials and as expected. In next decade, with many big changes and “speeding up”, Vietnam PT & IT is requested to advance and rapidly move to the “taking off” period. The Vietnam ICT development Strategy for the period of 2011-2020, so called “Taking off Strategy”, is a precocious preparation of the Ministry in order to catch chances and take advantages of ICT revolution.
“Taking off” strategy determines two main lines to achieve the goal: developing the ICT human resources of high quality is the “break through” step; and mastering the domestic market to firmly expand to regional and global market is the decisive solution.
In addition, the Directive also states three main points of view to follow when implementing the strategy, including: changing strongly from the “wide” development to the “deep” development, from quantity to quality to enhance effectiveness and productivity; taking advantage of external force effectively to strengthen the internal force, internal force must become core and primary factor while still maintaining the important role of the external force; raising the sense of initiative and of creativeness in all business activities following the guideline of socialism-oriented market mechanism to improve the competitiveness as a whole.
The goal: some indicators at the top of region
The Directive defines the general goal: In 2020, ICT will become an important branch contributing strongly and effectively to the GDP growth with an increasing rate. ICT needs to reach an advance level among all ASEAN countries, especially some indicators will be at the top of the region such as: ICT human resources, e-Vietnam building and developing. Other indicators like ICT infrastructure indicators, some products of electronic industry, hardware industry and software industry will be developed as well as in developed countries.
To attain the goal, seven main solutions are stated in the Directive in order to create a base for the implementation of the strategy of which, the idea on state administrative management reform is the key. Management capacity must not only catch up but also wait in front for the development needs. Administrative management system must be well organized based on a clear distinction between policy-making organizations and policy-implementing ones.
NTP
