Some issues when start to collect ICT indicators in Vietnam

Geneva 8-10 September 2003

Nguyen Duc Thang

General Statistics Office of Vietnam

IntroductionCurrent situation of e-commerce

development in Vietnam. At the present, e-commerce has been

applied in various forms. The initiative of e-commerce in Vietnam

has just been embarked, at the first step. In general, e-commerce in Vietnam has

not yet been applied broadly and fully and GSO has some difficulties when start collecting ICT indicators as follow:

A. Subjective causesFramework of organization of GSO

Up to now, GSO has not got a section, which responsible for collecting and processing ICT indicators.

GSO has submitted an Odirnance on a change of framework of organization to Primer Minister.

Subjective causes (continuous)

Lacking of the document concerning to methodology

Building up the ICT indicators system.

Subjective causes (continuous)

Lacking of computers for statistical staff on some provinces/cities.

Up to now, we have got about 50 percent of 61 Provincial Statistics Offices which in common use local area network (LAN).

B. Objective causes

Some problems are not only impact to applying, developing e-commerce but also to collecting ICT indicators in Vietnamas follow:

1. Awareness of the people on e-commerce Today, the majority of Vietnamese, have

not yet had a complete awareness on e-commerce.

The proportion of internet subscribers (compared to the population) is much less than that in the regional countries.

Awareness of the people on e-commerce (continuos)

The reasons are low skill of using information technology applicants and knowledge of English, low income affects to the ones' demand or lack of security when taking part in e-commerce

Working manner and in general and purchasing habit in particular, are still under traditional form

2. Human resources for e-commerce

The informative workforce of Vietnam has not yet satisfied the demand on the domestic software market.

The majority of employee and people have not yet had sufficient skills to work and do business on the internet and with other modern equipment.

Weakness in English, the principle language on the internet, is also an obstacle to actively doing e-commerce.

3. Information and communication technology infrastructure

The information and communication network of Vietnam has not yet satisfied the demand for quickly having access to the internet of consumers and businesses.

Internet access cost is rather high compared to income of the majority of people.

The quality of telecommunication services, especially the quality of internet services, also influences the implement and development of e-commerce.

3. Information and communication technology infrastructure (continuos)

Hardware equipment mainly is imported.

Some of 100% foreign-invested enterprises manufactured and exported printing circuits for information equipment, however the imported materials reached to 90%.

4. Legislation infrastructure

Vietnam has not yet issued any legal texts stipulating in detail about e-commerce. This is a big barrier to the development of e-commerce in Vietnam.

The Ordinance on E-commerce is under drafting process.

5. Electronic payment Electronic payment system of Vietnam

commercial banks has not yet developed sufficiently to satisfy requirements of e-commerce.

Legal texts related to tax, accounting and statistics management didn't accept invoices in electronic form of enterprises.

6. Electronic payment (continuos)

Vietnam commercial banks have not yet focussed on investment in research and development of electronic banking system

The usage of credit cards, payment cards, smart cards is limited to a narrow sphere, is now being experimented and has not yet become overall measures with respect to each bank.

7. Consumer protection

Recent years Vietnam has had many efforts in drafting and approving legal texts related to consumer protection. However, due to the context that e-commerce has not yet taken shape in Vietnam, all the above legal texts didn't reflect protection of consumer rights in e-commerce.

8. Information security

At present, security technology applied in commerce has not yet developed in Vietnam.

To encourage people to participate in e-commerce activities, Vietnam should quickly resolve the problems related to information security for e-commerce.

Some ICT indicators are collected in co-ordination with other census by GSO

The Agriculture, Forest and Aquiculture census 2001, the Establishment Census 2002.

Result of some indicators as follow:- Number of Establishments: 2,9 million, of

which: Enterprises 2.2 % Branch of enterprises 1.7% Business household: 90.2% Administrative Unit: 5.9%

Result of some indicators (continuous)

- Rate of employee use computer compare to total: 7.84%

- Rate of establishment using computer: 3.1%

- Rate of establishment have access to the Internet: 0.76%

- Rate of establishment have Website: 0.09%

- Rate of establishment have used e-commerce: 0.14%

C. Recommendation of GSO to the International Organization for

support and assistance

Expert for consulting of building up the ICT indicators system.

Financial supports for organizing workshops, seminar and training on collecting ICT indicators.

Equipment supports for statistical staff.Financial supports for organizing a pilot

survey on collecting ICT indicators.

Thank you