IT and communications sector will be further prioritised for official development assistance

Hanoi (VNA)- The information technology (IT) and communications sector will be
further prioritised for official development assistance (ODA) to speed up its
development and make Vietnam a strong country in this field.

According to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), since 1993, ODA
for IT and communications has been modest, reaching only 578 million USD, of which
nearly 490 million USD was in preferential loans and the remainder non-refundable
aid.

The main sponsors include the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB),
the European Commission, France, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea
and several United Nations organisations.

Among the leading ODA projects underway, the Vietnamese IT and communications
development project was loaned 87.87 million USD by the WB, the 46.34 million USD
postgraduate IT and communications education project and the 29.8 million USD
Internet development project for the community were both provided with loans by
the Japanese government.

During the 2011-2015 period, Vietnam expects to raise 1.5-2 billion USD from ODA
to develop its economic and technical infrastructure, including information and
telecommunications.

Cao Manh Cuong, deputy head of the Foreign Economic Relations Department under the
Ministry of Planning and Investment, said that the effective use of ODA will help
to raise capital from the private sector, foreign direct investment and
public-private partnerships (PPP).

Recently, the MIC has signed PPP agreements with the world’s leading IT
conglomerates such as Intel, Microsoft and Huawei to train up human resources for
Vietnamese businesses, award scholarships to IT students and improve the
country’s telecommunications infrastructure./.