The information technology (IT) and communications sector will befurther prioritised for official development assistance (ODA) to speedup its development and make Vietnam a strong country in this field.

According to the Ministry of Information andCommunications (MIC), since 1993, ODA for IT and communications has beenmodest, reaching only 578 million USD, of which nearly 490 million USDwas in preferential loans and the remainder non-refundable aid.

The main sponsors include the World Bank (WB), the Asian DevelopmentBank (ADB), the European Commission, France, the United States, Japan,the Republic of Korea and several United Nations organisations.

Among the leading ODA projects underway, the Vietnamese IT andcommunications development project was loaned 87.87 million USD by theWB, the 46.34 million USD postgraduate IT and communications educationproject and the 29.8 million USD Internet development project for thecommunity were both provided with loans by the Japanese government.

During the 2011-2015 period, Vietnam expects to raise 1.5-2 billionUSD from ODA to develop its economic and technical infrastructure,including information and telecommunications.

CaoManh Cuong, deputy head of the Foreign Economic Relations Departmentunder the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said that the effectiveuse of ODA will help to raise capital from the private sector, foreigndirect investment and public-private partnerships (PPP).

Recently, the MIC has signed PPP agreements with the world’s leadingIT conglomerates such as Intel, Microsoft and Huawei to train up humanresources for Vietnamese businesses, award scholarships to IT studentsand improve the country’s telecommunications infrastructure./.