~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~ The Vietnam News

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[Year 2001]

MeetChina.com, Vietnam firm to ink e-commerce deal HANOI - MeetChina.com, a U.S.-based online sourcing company, and a Vietnamese Internet and software firm will sign an e-commerce deal during U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Vietnam this month, an executive said on Friday. Le Hong Son, marketing director of Vietnam's state-run Corporation of Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT) said the deal would promote e-commerce between Vietnam and the United States. ``We will sign it during the visit to Vietnam by President Bill Clinton,'' Son told Reuters but declined to give further details. Clinton will be the first U.S. president to visit Vietnam since the late Richard Nixon visited Saigon in 1969 at the height of the War. He is due to arrive in Hanoi on November 16. MeetChina.com makes money by promoting goods manufactured by its 70,000 Chinese member companies to overseas buyers. FPT is a software developer and Internet access provider controlled by Hanoi's Science, Technology and Environment Ministry and ranks second after the state-run Vietnam Datacommunication Co in term of Internet subscribers. Son said FPT was also planning to create a virtual software park, which it hoped would attract the participation of France Telecom (FTE.PA) and overseas Vietnamese to cooperate in software development and online trade. FPT set up a representative office in the U.S. high-tech heartland Silicon Valley in January to promote its software business. Last year it also opened a branch in India. Software development is a new business in communist Vietnam where piracy is widespread. The country has ambitions to become a centre for information technology although some analysts question the viability of this aim given the tight control the authorities try to keep on information flows. Reuters - November 3, 2000.

Vietnam To Expand Internet Access, Avoid Need For ISPs HANOI - Vietnam Post & Telecommunications Corporation, or VNPT, plans to expand Internet access by allowing users to bypass Internet service provider accounts and dial directly into the international system. A VNPT executive told Dow Jones Newswires Friday that users who wish to access local Web sites only will be able to dial 1268 and will be charged a cheaper rate than those who want to access foreign sites. To access overseas-based Web sites, Vietnam's Internet users must dial 1269 and pay a higher per-minute charge, the official said. Exact details of VNPT's new Internet access prices weren't provided, but the official said charges will be automatically added to the users' monthly telephone bill. He said the service is already available in many provinces on a trial basis but hasn't been introduced in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City - home to 90% of Vietnam's current 75,000 Internet users. "We will offer the new service (in the two cities) over a three-month experimental period" and will then decide whether or not to offer it on a permanent basis, he said, adding that VNPT wants "to increase the number of Internet users in Vietnam." Vietnam now has five Internet service providers, or ISPs, of which state-owned VNPT's Vietnam Datacommunication Co., is the largest. Dow Jones - November 3, 2000.