News
Digital sector comes into sharp focus
Vietnam will boost its digital content industry through streamlining its legal environment and upgrading its broadband network this year.
A master plan drafted on digital content industry written by the Department of Information Technology Industry under the Ministry of Post and Telematics was released at a seminar in Hanoi last week. The draft is to submitted to the government later this year.
Vietnam hopes the industry will generate $400 million in the revenue by 2010 with an annual growth rate of 50 per cent. The country will give training courses to around 300,000 digital content industry experts.
Digital content industry covers e-learning, games including games for computer, online game, interactive game and game for mobile handset, internet e-content such as online newspaper, websites, searching, library; value-added services for mobile consisting of logo, ring tones and digital movies, television and cartoon.
“Digital content is a digital product in which content part is much bigger than code one,” said Nguyen Trong Duong, an official from the department.
He said the new content products have been present in Vietnam for two years with high growth rate.
They include online games, primary e-learning, value-added services for mobiles, internet protocol television with the total labour force of around 10,000 staff.
According to the ministry, there are 50 enterprises providing online training materials, 20 others value added services for mobiles and 10 online game providers.
Of which, value-added services for mobiles are most bustling with VND1.5 trillion ($94.3m) in revenue last year. Meanwhile, online games are expected to bring a revenue of $10-15m this year.
“There is a need for supporting the industry to further develop in Vietnam,” said Duong.
Department of Information Technology Industry director Nguyen Anh Tuan told Vietnam Investment Review the content industry was predicted to surpass software industry in terms of revenue by then.
The first things needed to support the industry are legal corridors and copyright protection. Of which, the ministry will issue legal documents on state management on launching digital content services and documents on copyright protection.
“Digital content is a convergence of internet, telecom and information technology. However, there is no legal management documents on the industry while internet and telecom have already been supported by legal ones,” said Tuan.
“The third problem is developing broadband infrastructure including fixed lines upgrade and third generation (3G) deployment for mobile service and then the progress of enterprises with support from venture investment funds,” said Tuan.
Duong said the ministry cooperated with a consultant company to give measures and initial online content to be sold next month.
Hoang Le Minh, deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City Post and Telematics Department, said broadband in Vietnam is not developed enough for serving the industry development while network security has been ignored by internet service providers, which will create a low capability network with spam attacks.
He said up to a half of network traffic was occupied by spam and Trojan mails, which need higher-quality security measures.
“We need the government to outline a strategy for broadband development in Vietnam to be determine in content industry development,” Minh said.
The Vietnam information and communication technology (ICT) development strategy to 2010 and forward to 2020 approved by the government last year aims to reach an annual information and communication technology (ICT) revenue of $6-7 billion by 2010 including $3bn in the hardware industry, $2bn in electronics production and $1.2bn in the software industry.
(Source: VIR)
