Mekong Delta eyes IT industry

HCM City (VNA) – The Mekong Delta city of Can Tho plans to solicit investment in and offer incentives to the information technology industry.

“The Mekong Delta provinces have not got any high-tech park with proper infrastructure like HCM City and Hanoi though human resources for the industry are plentifully available,” Vo Hung Dung, Director of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Can Tho branch, was quoted as saying by Thoi bao Kinh te Vietnam (Vietnam Economic Times) newspaper.

"They would like to develop the industry but have not been able to launch any project with a comprehensive incentive policy.”

Last year out of 571 projects in which the region solicited investment, only two were in IT.

In March last year the Government approved the “National Targeted Programme on developing IT industry by 2020 with vision to 2025”.

Can Tho’s development and incentive policies are likely to be in line with this programme.

Vietnam has become an attractive destination for high-tech companies and many have come, including Japan’s Sanyo, Matsushita, Sony, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Panasonic, and Nidec, the US’s Intel and Microsoft, and the Republic of Korea’s Samsung and LG.

All of them have factories with modern technologies in the country and continue to expand production.

HCM City houses most of the high-tech companies in its Saigon High-tech Park (SHTP).

As of April SHTP had 100 factories, including those belonging to Intel, SamSung, Nidec and Jabil.

Last year its exports were worth 4 billion USD, four times the 2011 figure.

The average output of a worker in SHTP is 9.8 times that of workers in other industrial parks and one hectare creates an export value of 14 million USD.-VNA