Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam isseeking to develop its information and communications technology industry (ICT)with a focus on domestic firms to make it a key economic sector in the nextdecade, according to experts.

The Ministry of Information andCommunications is developing an ICT industry development programme, which isexpected to be submitted to the Government for issuance within the firstquarter of 2020.

Speaking at a conference on December 19 todiscuss the ICT development programme, Deputy Minister of Information andCommunications Phan Tam said the ICT industry is seeing a slowdown in revenue.

The industry’s revenue increased by just9.8 percent in 2019 over the previous year. This was low compared to theaverage annual growth rate of 31.1 percent in 2014-2019 period.

In addition, the ICT industry is stilllargely dependent on foreign-invested companies, Tam said, citing the fact thatforeign-invested companies account for more than 90 percent of the industry’sexport revenue.

Domestic ICT firms are mainly involved inonly low value stages of production, such as hardware assembly and softwareoutsourcing.

“We have not had had many uniquemade-in-Vietnam ICT products,” Tam said.

Tam said the programme would focus onmeasures to encourage Vietnamese firms to engage deeper in the global ICTindustry’s value chain and increase added value.

It would be important to leverage thedevelopment of domestic ICT companies, and at the same time, attract foreigndirect investment (FDI) into the sector, he said, adding that the programmealso aims to build links between domestic and FDI companies as wellas with the global market.

According to Deputy Director of theministry’s Information and Technology Department Nguyen Thanh Tuyen, theprogramme targets improving the value, quality, competitiveness and creativityof the ICT industry.

Priority would be given to the development ofproducts and services based on the core technologies of Industry 4.0 suchas artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, automation, data analysis and5G.

Domestic firms would be in the spotlight, hestressed. The programme targets that domestic ICT firms would grow at a ratetwo times higher than the country’s gross domestic product growth rate.

By 2025, Vietnam is hoped to have the abilityto master technologies in producing major ICT products to servesocio-economic development and national security.

The ICT industry is expected to become a keyeconomic sector in the next five years.

Vietnam’s ICT industry has seen significantdevelopment in the past five years and grew at an average paceof 31.1 percent per year in 2014-2019 to reach revenue of 110 billion USDthis year.

The industry provided jobs for more than 1million people and ICT firms contributed 53 trillion VND (2.28 billion USD) tothe State budget in 2019./.