Malaysian companies are ready to offer consultancy and solutions for Vietnamese enterprises and government to build an e-government system and boost the development of the ICT industry. The information was given by Zalizan Mohamed Noh, Service Development Director of MSC company - under Malaysia’ Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation at the Vietnam-Malaysia IT Forum held at Quang Trung Software Park last week. Vietnam’s provinces now meet difficulties in deploying e-government, he noted, suggesting Vietnam should assign the project to major cities and provinces before spreading it nationwide. Around 64 businesses from the two countries gathered at the forum to seek cooperative opportunities in the fields of e-government, data center, IT and telecom services, and mobile phone applications. Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Minh Hong expressed his hopes about stronger bilateral cooperation between enterprises of the two countries to enhance their competitiveness in the global market. Malaysia has a strong IT infrastructure, expertise and a broadband network, while Vietnam boasts human resource potential and a promising market. Le Thai Hy, director of the municipal Department of Information and Communications, said that Vietnam’s IT sector has maintained stable growth over past years, with its revenues reaching $13 billion last year. In HCM City, the sector generates turnovers of nearly $2.5 billion a year. At the event, Vietnam’s TMA software company along with its Malaysian partner Nextgrid signed a deal with online payment service provider iPay88, under which a mobile payment system will be set up across the Southeast Asia using TMA Nextgrid technology via iPay88. Minister Hong said currently only 22 Malaysian IT companies are operating in Vietnam. By end-February, Malaysia had pledged around $9 billion in investments in Vietnam, but IT accounted for a small proportion of $7.9 million. (ICT News May 25 p4, VTC May 25)
