Japan profiles Vietnam’s software outsourcing market
(VOV) - A September 27 report in the Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai has declared Vietnam’s software outsourcing market remains attractive to Japanese businesses, noting its human resource costs are only 60 percent of those in China and India.
Between 70–80 Japanese information technology companies are currently invested in Vietnam
An additional 20 have indicated plans to join their compatriots, doubling 2012’s new investment figure.
Japan’s leading telecommunications company Softbank is quoted as saying one of its best-selling software applications was programmed by Vietnamese technicians. GMO Internet Company made its first Vietnamese investment in 2011.
It now employs220 programmers and expects to hire 80 more in the near future.
Around 200,000 Vietnamese workers have completed courses run by information technology training centres.
Japanese language students in Vietnam hovers at 46,000 compared to Indonesia’s 870,000 and China’s more than one million.
But Japan External Trade Organisation Investment Consultant Yoshitaka Kurihara is confident Vietnam can provide the necessary numbers of adequately qualified staff.
He says Vietnamese employees are also typically very fast learners. Vietnam’s preferential tax rates are another feature fuelling Japanese investment enthusiasm.
IT businesses are currently taxed at 25 percent, scheduled to drop to 22 percent from 2014. Businesses are granted tax exemptions for their first four years and at 50 percent of the full rate for the five years following. Renting Vietnamese workshop and office space is also comparatively cheap.