The Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to construct an e-commerce website starting from 2012 based on import and export activities.

Do Van Chien, director of the ministry's Information Centre, said that the website will offer support services to commercial transactions among enterprises focused on textiles, seafood, agricultural products, wood, rubber, footwear, leather, steel, fertiliser, plastic and handicrafts.

The website will also provide businesses with an opportunity of finding partners, expanding their business activities and exploring new markets, especially to small- and medium-sized companies, Chien said.

Similar to international B2B (business-to-business) websites, the MoIT's site will introduce customers to images, products and enterprise information, said Hoang Ngoc Oanh, deputy head of the ministry's e-commerce division.

She added that businesses will receive additional assistance in terms of dealing with customs, banking, transport and insurance via the new site.

For those enterprises new to doing business online, a trial site www.likevietnam.com will include introductions to online and offline e-commerce services.

Dinh Duc Thu, director of the VDC Online Company, said that Vietnam currently had 9,300 B2C (business-to-customer) and 3,000 B2B websites producing total revenues of 1.95 billion USD a year.

Enterprises involved in the above had helped promote the use of software in production and business, especially with regard to accounting, Thu said, adding that investment to management software had successfully been applied to workforces, supply chains and customers.

According to Thu, investment to e-commerce and information technology has accounted for 5 percent of total enterprise production and business costs.

Research has found that 58 percent out of nearly 30 million-internet users source information related to commodities they plan to buy online before making a decision, providing Vietnam with a broad canvas on which to grow its e-commerce industry.

Le Danh Vinh, deputy minister of Industry and Trade and chairman of the Vietnam E-Commerce Association (VECOM), said that, while Vietnamese e-commerce had developed quickly over the past few years, the country still lagged behind in terms of development, compared to other parts of the world.

Tran Huu Linh, deputy head of the ministry's E-Commerce and Information Technology Department, said that his department planned to roll out policies, regulations and consultant services in support of enterprises applying e-commerce activities for production and business purposes. Vietnam 's total e-commerce transaction value is expected to reach 6 billion USD by 2015, according to economic experts./.