Vietnam aims to have at least 100,000 digital technology firms by 2030. It is expected that the digital economy would make up 30% of GDP by that time.
According to a press release, the Directive No 01/CT-TTg, the first Prime Minister’s instruction of the new year 2020, is about the promotion of Vietnam’s digital technology. Concrete goals and 12 solutions to reach those goals are in the document.
The development models of some economies growing based on digital technology firms show that Vietnam needs at least 100,000 digital technology businesses by 2030 to develop the digital economy, smart cities, and e-government.
The firms will help utilise the achievements of digital technology widely in socio-economic fields and carry out Vietnam digital transformation.
The Prime Minister said that the aspiration for the market of nearly 100 million people and specific problems that need to be solved in the fields of agriculture, transportation, health, education, finance, natural resources, and environment are all the favourable premises for Vietnam’s digital technology businesses to grow and reach out to the world.
A news report noted that the Prime Minister’s directive is consistent with the current situation and it is a timely instruction to implement the politburo’s resolution on a number of guidelines and policies to actively participate in the fourth industrial revolution.
The reports of the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) showed that with 50,000 technology firms, the IT industry maintains a 10% growth rate.
The mobile broadband download speed as of Q4 2019 was 29.08 MBps, very close to the world’s average speed of 30.93 MBps. MIC has submitted to the Prime Minister the plan to stop the old 2G technology, slated by 2022.
According to the e-Conomy Southeast Asia 2019 Report, Vietnam’s digital economy in 2019 was valued at US$12 billion, making up 5% of the nation’s GDP, or four times higher than 2015. The figure is predicted to reach US$ 43 billion by 2025, with the fields of e-commerce, e-tourism, e-communication and e-hailing.
Vietnam’s digital economy, together with Indonesia, is leading the region in terms of development, with the growth rate of 38%, higher than the region’s average growth rate of 33% since 2015.
Hanoi and HCM City are two of seven large cities with developed digital economies. Vietnam is the market that receives the third biggest investment capital in the region, after Indonesia and Singapore. The US$ 600 million poured into Vietnam in the period from 2018 to the first half of 2019, while the figures were US $350 million in 2018 and US$ 140 million in 2017.
International organisations predicted that in the best scenario, if Vietnam carries out digital transformation in all sectors and exports ICT products and services, GDP could increase by VN 3,750 trillion (about US $160 million) in the next 20 years.
MIC also recently announced its ICT development strategy. It set specific target numbers, including US $120 billion of the export turnover of the ICT industry by 2025. It is essential to increase the number of IT enterprises to 50,000 and ICT workers with prodigious skills and knowledge to 1.3 million.