Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications has launched a project on raising the capacity of using computers and public internet access among rural residents in 40 disadvantaged provinces across the country during the period of 2011-2016. The project has total spending of over $50.5 million, including $30 million in nonrefundable aid from the U.S.-based the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation while Microsoft will grant $3.64 million worth of software. The Vietnamese government will contribute the remaining reciprocal fund of $16.93 million, the Thoi bao Kinh te newspaper reported. The project will be deployed at 400 public libraries at district and provincial level and 1,500 communal cultural posts and libraries across the provinces, providing them with 12,070 broadband internet-connected computers and supporting devices. It is aimed to provide access internet for an additional 760,000 rural residents during the five-year period. In the period of 2009-2011, the ministry carried out the first phase of this project with total spending of around $2.18 million, mostly funded by Bill & Melinda Gates. It has helped narrow the gap in digital information between urban and rural areas in Vietnam, contributing to socio-economic development. In early 2010, the government also approved to spend more than VND24 trillion ($1.23 billion) on a project to develop information and communication services in rural areas in the 2011-2020 period. It aims to build public post and telecom offices in 100% of remote, far-reaching and extremely poor communes across the nation. By 2020, internet subscribers in rural areas are targeted to account for 30%-40% of the national average density. By end-Oct, Vietnam had 32.1 million internet users, rising 24.4% from a year earlier. The number of broadband internet subscribers was 4.2 million. (Vneconomy Nov 11, Tin Tuc – News Nov 11 p8)
