Denmark will be giving the Vietnam Software Association (Vinasa) financial and technical assistance in a 4.8 million DKK (about 1 million USD) project signed on May 14 in the capital.

The project, which will be implemented over three years to 2011, will help Vinasa realise its goal of one day making Vietnam an international software power.

Denmark will support Vinasa and software enterprises in measures that will ensure stability and development in the software industry. The project will help develop Vinasa’s strategy and assessment of the country’s software industry, develop policy dialogue, build Vinasa’s portals (specifically portals for information exchange) and cooperate with Danish software enterprises and training programmes.

“In recent years, Vietnam ’s software industry has posted high annual growth rates of over 30 percent and has strong potential for future software development,” said Pham Tan Cong, vice president and general secretary of Vinasa.

“The world software industry is now short of 1.5 million IT engineers, and could be short 3 million by 2010 and 10 million by 2020. This world shortage forces developed countries to seek workers in developing nations to balance and speed up their outsourcing activities.

This gives the Vietnamese software industry a chance to expand its international cooperation based on the capacity of the country’s software workforce.”

Cong noted that if Vietnam could focus on IT human resource training, it has a good opportunity to be one of the world’s leading suppliers of software human resources and could become an international software power.

During the event, the Danish Ambassador to Vietnam Peter Lysholt Hansen said that by cooperating, sharing experiences and promoting business links and trade within the software and IT industries, Denmark could help the country create a firm foundation for software enterprises.

There are currently around 15 Danish software enterprises doing business in Vietnam and 15 other firms expressing interest in seeking business opportunities in the country, he added.