Turning Vietnam into a strong information and technology (IT) country is not a target out of reach. The question is how to tap its potential to make the appropriate investments and avoid wastefulness.

With a total estimated cost of US$8 billion, the project will become the largest ever national “super” IT project in Vietnam.

With a total estimated cost of US$8 billion, the project will become the largest ever national “super” IT project in Vietnam.

The project includes six main programmes. The first key programme focuses on developing infrastructure facilities for a broadband telecom network, which will account for up to 70 percent of the total cost of the project. This capital investment will come from the State budget and ODA funding.

The second programme on the safety of national information has a total budget of VND 700 billion from the State. The third programme worth VND9,900 billion aims to bring telephones and audiovisual equipment to households in remote areas and the fourth programme valued at VND738 billion aims to support IT applications at State agencies. The fifth component will support businesses in production and trademark advertisement and the last component will boost IT human resources development at a total cost of VND210 billion.

At the recent second session of the National Council of Information and Technology Policy, the country"s leading professors and doctors raised their concern over the efficiency of using the State budget and the imbalance in the whole project’s investment structure. Prof and Dr Nguyen Ngoc Tran, former Deputy Director of the National Assembly’s External Relations Committee, said that we have to save every amount of the State budget while a lot of other national social welfare projects are needing this amount of money.

Mr Tran"s view was shared by Dr. Nguyen Bich Dat, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, who said that the total investment in the project is too big for the State budget. It is essential to intensify socialization measures and encourage businesses to implement IT programmes by themselves, Dr. Dat added.

Regarding the structure of investment capital, Dr. Nguyen Quan, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, said that it is a big waste to implement such an ambitious project that invests 70 percent of its total budget in telecommunication infrastructure. This project can only help Vietnam become a powerful IT country in terms of telecommunication infrastructure, he noted.

Dr Quan stressed the important role of human resources in the IT project, saying that IT engineers always play the decisive role in the success of a project, yet this factor is allocated less than 0.22 percent of the project"s total budget. He also cited an example of the Intel Group which could only recruit 40 qualified staff in Vietnam when it needed 400.

Some countries achieved success in IT development because they knew how to make use of their advantages. For instance, Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia have been very successful in tapping their potential to develop hardware, while India chose to spearhead its software sector. India followed the right path by investing in human resources for software development and at present most IT engineers working in Silicon Valley are Indian.

Vietnam should identify its advantages to boost IT development properly to become a powerful IT country and IT projects should be carefully considered before being approved and implemented. The country should choose to develop either hardware, software or IT engineers so that it can avoid wasting investment, which could create a heavy financial burden for the next generation.