Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a master plan to develop the country’s telecommunications network up to 2020, to ensure that 40-45 percent of all households have a telephone by 2015, 40-45 percent of the population have access to the internet by 2015 and 55-60 percent by 2020.

The plan also targets 90 percent of the population having mobile phone coverage by 2015 and 95 percent in 2020. The growth rate in the telecommunications sector will make up 1.2-1.5 times of the GDP growth rate by 2020. The total revenue from this sector is also expected to reach 15-17 billion USD by 2020, or 6-7 percent of the country’s GDP.

Under the plan, in the near future, Vietnam will restructure its telecoms market on the basis of re-organising businesses in the sector, especially incompetent state-owned enterprises.

The country plans to speed up the development of its ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) network, expand the mobile network and improve the quality of 3G technology to help subscriber’s access the internet whenever and wherever they are.

The plan also prioritises completing the restructuring of the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Group (VNPT) and the Military Telecommunications Group (Viettel) to raise their competitive capacity and improve the quality of their manufacturing and operational effectiveness.-VNA