Some issues when start to collect ICT indicators in Vietnam

1
Some issues when start to collect ICT indicators
in Vietnam

• Geneva 8-10 September 2003
• Nguyen Duc Thang
• General Statistics Office of Vietnam

2
Introduction

• Current 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

3
A. Subjective causes

• Framework 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.

4
Subjective causes (continuous)

• Lacking of the document concerning to methodology
• Building up the ICT indicators system.

5
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).

6
B. Objective causes

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

7
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.

8
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

9
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.

10
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.

11
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.

12
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.

13
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.

14
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.

15
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.

16
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.

17
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

18
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

19
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.

20
Thank you