Mr Nhan made the statement at a conference in Hanoi on December 3 to review 10 years of implementing the Politbureau’s Directive 58 on applying information technology in the national cause of modernization and industrialization and implementing the project to turn Vietnam into a strong IT nation.  

Do Trung Ta, deputy head of the national steering committee for Information and Technology, said that over the past ten years, Vietnam’s IT sector has become a key technical industry which contributes 6.7 percent of the country’s GDP.  

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan asked the Ministry of Information and Communication to direct localities and telecommunications businesses to strive to train 30 percent of IT students in professional skills and foreign languages so they can become involved in the international labour market by 2015.

The national rate of internet use is expected to reach more than 50 percent while around 80 percent of businesses and social organizations will use IT in the educational and medical sector.  

Mr Nhan said that to fulfil the targets, Vietnam should reform state management in the IT field to facilitate the operations of telecoms businesses, and help them improve their competitive edge under the supervision of state management agencies.