Internet contributes 0.9 pct to Vietnam’s GDP
HANOI — Internet contributes 0.9 percent to Vietnam’s GDP and 1.6 percent to the country’s GDP growth rate of 14.4 percent, according to the figures released in a workshop held here on Wednesday.
Vietnam is an emerging market for the Internet development, ranking 13th in the world in terms of young Internet users with a full know-how.
Participating to the workshop “Impacts of the Internet to Vietnam’s economic development” held here by the Vietnam Information Technology Journalists Club, the McKinsey & Company provided the above figures and news.
To compile its report, “Online and tendency: Impacts of the Internet to Emerging Countries”, McKinsey & Company had conducted surveys in 30 countries, including Vietnam. It also revealed that Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises increased their business efficiency up 19 percent thanks to using the Internet.
The Internet has developed fast in Vietnam over the recent years, with 30 million Internet users out of its population of 87 million, said the report.
The strong Internet development shows a breakthrough of potential to push the Vietnamese economy forwards. The Vietnamese government considers the Internet as an important basic infrastructure of the country that helps ensuring development of all sectors in socio-economic development, addressed Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Le Nam Thang at the workshop.
E-trade in Vietnam has potential for development, but it has not yet been properly invested. There is still a gap between the Internet users and the non-users, as well as between Internet users in urban and rural areas. In addition, many businesses have not yet used the Internet in marketing their products and in contacting their trade partners, remarked Deputy Director of McKinsey &Company’s Singapore Office, Shaowei Ying.
To develop the Internet in the coming time, the Vietnamese government should further invest in the Internet infrastructure, fully take advantage of the mobile phone technology and set up more public Internet access sites, especially in rural and remote areas. Encouragement should also be made to foreign direct investment (FDI) businesses in the areas of information and communications, recommended foreign experts. <Xinhua>
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