The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative (VNCI) recently signed a cooperation agreement to speed up IT application to enhance the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the period of 2005-2007.
This is an activity under the national project called “Supporting Enterprises in IT Application in 2005-2010” approved by the Prime Minister in July 2005 and carried out by VCCI.
Under the agreement, the two sides will undertake three major targets: assessing the real situation of applying IT in each sector, helping enterprises realize the significant connection between their competitiveness and IT application in production and business activities, and supporting SMEs to effectively apply IT. Activities to be implemented in the coming time include the assessment of IT application in the tourism sector, publications of an IT application handbook for enterprises and IT application bulletins, training courses, and others.
The first result of the cooperation agreement is the publication of the IT application handbook for enterprises. Mr. Nguyen Van Thao, Head of VCCI’s Institute of Technology for Business (ITB), said the book would be a full guidance of IT application for each development pace of enterprises. VCCI will publish following parts of the handbook in the near future with the assistance of VNCI.
Over the past four months, VCCI, in cooperation with VNCI and the Vietnam Fruit Association, organized a seminar entitled “Developing IT Application in Vietnam’s Fruit Sector.” VNCI’s survey showed that 56 per cent of the sector’s enterprises used the Internet, 92 per cent had demands for applying IT products and services. Based on these surveyed results, VCCI and VNCI have worked out IT solutions to further improve the fruit sector’s competitiveness.
A recent survey conducted by the SMEs Development Agency under Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) indicated local SMEs’ weak awareness and slow approach of technology. Only 25.94 per cent of enterprises felt the need to develop their knowledge about new technology. The figure reflects the state of many businesses and the problems they may have in adapting to future change.
In fact, 92 per cent of SMEs are using and applying average or below average technologies and only 8 per cent using advanced technologies, mostly from foreign invested and state-owned enterprises, the survey was told.
Currently, 97 per cent of the total 200,000 enterprises operating in Vietnam are SMEs. However, their business size is tiny with 90 per cent of them having registered capital of less than VND5 billion (US$316,500).
Nguyen Thoa
Vietnamese
