Vietnam joins the Internet revolution
HANOI - Nguyen Anh Tuan, the slim, khaki-clad, blue-shirted
entrepreneurial 38-year-old father of Vietnam's Internet service, Vietnam
Data Communications (VDC), logs on daily to communicate with his
strategic and unlikely partner, 4Real Software in Houston, Texas.
The Internet is at the center of Tuan's daily life on tamarind-lined Ba
Trieu street in Hanoi. Here, in his spartan and modern office with its
highly polished wood floors, the technopreneur spends several hours
each day on his laptop, a new Sony Vaio, communicating online to his
international partner and others in the West. For Tuan, the Internet is an
enabling technology breaking down both physical and political barriers
between former enemies. The Internet is playing a significant role in
Vietnam's economic development and is propelling the national economy
down the road into the global economy.
Tuan's expanding government-controlled business unit, Value Added
Service Center, has licensed its proprietary software, designed for the
Palm Pilot, to the Houston-based software company, which holds an
export contract valued at US$1.5 million. 4Real Software and Tuan's
enterprising state-controlled division are well into the second year of a
strategic relationship to develop the software and information technology
(IT) export industry in Vietnam.
"Yes, Vietnam is now connected to the world and I see an opportunity to
do something significant for the country. We have bright, talented young
people and they are ready to participate in the globally competitive
software industry," remarked Tuan, looking up momentarily from his
computer. Among their achieved successes is a joint effort with
Microsoft to train hundreds of software developers in Vietnam.
No doubt, for some early foreign investors the promised economic
reforms have stalled, but there's no disputing Vietnam's large numbers of
IT-literate young entrepreneurs pushing the government for greater
access to the Internet.
Adding new impetus for those entrepreneurs still pursuing domestic
market opportunities, Vietnam's Directorate General of Posts and
Telecommunications (DGPT) trumpeted its pre-Tet plans to license one
or two more firms to open Internet gateways later this year. "We will
license one or two more Internet access providers," Mai Liem Truc, the
head of market regulator DGPT, announced just a few weeks ago in
Hanoi.
The country currently has just two Internet gateways, both operated by
the state-run VDC, which provides access for four Internet service
providers (ISPs).
The dramatic and surprising business venture between Vietnam's leading
ISP, VDC, and an overseas Vietnamese, Kien Pham, promises to help
modernize Vietnam and signals a new beginning for a poor country still
slowly struggling to find a balance between control - as evidenced by
what many regard as the glacial pace of its economic reforms - and the
exigencies of a free marketplace. A government decree issued last year
makes clear that all Internet gateways will remain state-controlled.
Vietnam's own nascent dreams for a software industry are further
buttressed with the recent signing of the bilateral trade agreement with the
United States. In return for vastly improved access to the coveted US
market, Hanoi has finally agreed to provide foreign investors with
transparent approvals processes and an end to dual-pricing hurdles.
More Vietnamese Silicon Valley-trained software engineers are being
encouraged by the state-controlled Post and Telecommunications. They
are being brought into the sensitive and highly politically charged
government-controlled Internet service.
"I see no issues here at all," claims Tuan. "We have a partner who has
something to contribute to our success and to his own company. We do
not need to discuss politics or reconciliation. Our focus is business
development and making profits."
Last year alone, in both Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi many programming
courses have sprung up, with numerous overseas tie-ups. In old Hanoi,
not far from Tuan's modern three-storey government offices, there are
more than 75 Internet cafes, offering Internet access while serving up
coffee, bike rentals and tour packages, a big jump since a year ago. In
the south, along with the Honda Dreams choking the streets of Ho Chi
Minh City, there are several hundred Internet cafes: "Vietnam is making
great strides forward in connecting the country with the West and the
latest technology developments," exclaimed the optimistic Tuan.
Although mindful of the benefits of the Internet, particularly its aim of
establishing the country as a global IT player, the ruling Communist Party
still considers free flow of information a threat to its hold on power. Yet
Tuan's optimism belies IT's cloudy, if not challenging - as the result of
daily government censorship - future in Vietnam. For example, VDC's
firewall intercepts every single request to access a site in Vietnam and
then passes it on only if it complies with the country's censorship
regulations. The Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Culture and
Information established its firewall system with the advent of Internet
service access in Vietnam.
Despite these security issues, the government has embarked on an
ambitious IT imperative by establishing a subsidized software park for
start-up companies at Quang Trung Software City, about 30 minutes
from downtown Ho Chi Minh City. Their dedicated service lines allow
faster access time, while rates are reduced to serve start-up companies
better.
Through Vietnam Post and Telecommunications, the government has
targeted a software turnover of at least $100 million by 2005. For the
first time since its development, VNPT's deputy director, Hoang Thai
Tho, indicated it earned more than $1 billion last year, installing 4.23
telephones per 100 people.
Saigon Tech, which is in the same software park, in a joint degree
agreement with Houston Community College System (HCCS), offers
programs in computer and information science technology. "Our
students, now more than 180, are benefiting from the small classes and
excellent faculty, and all our courses are taught in English," said Nguyen
Thi Anh Thu from Saigon Tech.
All these initiatives provide some measure of hope to Vietnam's younger
generation. Independent software developers in Ho Chi Minh City, such
as Phil Tran of Glass Egg Digital Media, recognize that Vietnam is poised
for growth in an industry that is momentarily in a state of contraction
since last year. Glass Egg has found its niche creating detailed animated
characters for some of the largest game publishers. "We are creating our
own Silicon Alley work atmosphere here in Vietnam and our team of
young bright people are ready for all new challenges," said Tran, a
University of California at Berkeley graduate.
Also, Cisco's chief representative Ha Huy Hao reveals that it will open a
Cisco Networking Academy in Hanoi soon. "Although the IT
developments here have not reached the international standards yet, the
Vietnamese are intelligent and eager to learn new technologies," adds
Hao.
With this boost from the software developers and training centers, no
wonder DGPT aims to increase Internet usage to at least 4 or 5 percent
of the population by 2005. Don't blink, this may be a reality. Vietnam has
witnessed, over the past four years, an annual 10 percent growth in
telephone subscribers, while Internet subscribers grew at an 80 percent
rate per year.
By James Borton - Asia Times - February 22, 2002.
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