The 2012 Vietnam Information and Communications Technology Summit(Vietnam ICT Summit) opened in Hanoi on June 26 in the presence ofDeputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan.

With the theme ‘ICT – the Fundament of National Infrastructure,’ thesummit promotes the modernisation of the country’s infrastructure byapplying information technology (IT) to turn Vietnam into a modernindustrialised nation by 2020.

The summit willhelp to raise awareness of the Party’s new policy to develop ICT as thefundamental to the nation’s infrastructure as well as discuss visions,strategies and measures to develop smart infrastructure systems.

When speaking at the event, Deputy PM Nhan said that the Party andState has recognised the importance of ICT in national development quiteearly, reflected by the Politburo’s Directive No. 58 issued in 2000 onpromoting the application of IT to serve national modernisation andindustrialisation.

Nhan stressed that the Governmentis ready to consider proposals put forward by specialists as well asthe business community in the field.

He suggestedthat both ministries and provinces create the right conditions so ICTcan be applied during the development process while gradually puttingtogether training courses on IT management systems.

During the two-day summit, there will be four seminars on how to use ICTto deal with socially contentious issues such as traffic congestion andaccidents, educational reforms, developing smart cities and electronicID cards.

Over the past 10 years, the ICT sector has seen some gigantic developments and revenues in 2011 were 20.7 billion USD.-VNA