According to the latest figure released by the Da Nang Department of Information and Communications, the city is now home to over 80 software businesses which are either branches of their parent companies in Japan or producers exporting to this market.

Da Nang is the most attractive destination in Viet Nam for Japanese businesses who want to order their software products.  The reasons seem to be the similarities between the cultures of Viet Nam and Japan, a cheap workforce, and good infrastructure in the city.

The director of the city’s branch of the Global Cybersoft company, Mr Dang Hoang Long, said that Japan presents a great potential market for local software producers in the future.  He remarked that after 3 years operating in Da Nang, his branch has won the trust of Japanese customers in this fastidious market and has doubled its export revenue growth from this market every year. 

Over 50% of the total orders for software from Da Nang’s IT businesses are now from Japanese customers and their revenues have risen significantly year by year.

Employees at a software company

The FPT Software Da Nang company (Fsoft Da Nang) is the largest software exporter in the city, and it always receives praise from its Japanese customers for its highly-skilled employees.  They have played a vital role in successfully implementing numerous large software orders from their Japanese customers.

In 2015, Fsoft Da Nang earned around 26 million USD from exports, 70% of which came from Japanese customers.  The company’s director, Mr Nguyen Tuan Phuong, said that his company is paying special attention to building a long-term relationship with its Japanese customers.  He added that a focus is on developing and providing high quality products as well as offering the best service to customers and improving the professional skills of the company’s employees.  Importance is also being attached to developing IT engineers who can speak Japanese fluently.

This year, Fsoft Da Nang’s export earnings from Japan are targeted to rise by over 40%.

According to local software experts, IT employees for local software producers supplying Japan will be in high demand in the years ahead.  Many large IT companies are in need of more employees who possess high-quality professional skills and a proficiency in Japanese.  However, the city is now facing a severe shortage of such people.

In an effort to improve the situation, since 2014 many universities and colleges have cooperated with local IT companies to introduce new IT-related subjects for their students.  In addition, some universities have entered cooperative agreements with Japanese companies to accept more teaching staff and funds from them for training their students. 

The University of Science and Technology is a typical example.  It has already signed an agreement with Japan’s Framgia Vietnam company which will provide funding to provide Japanese language courses for its students.

Over recent years, Fsoft Da Nang has also entered into many cooperative agreements with some universities to provide Japanese language training programmes and offer job opportunities to their IT students.  The company also offers internship opportunities for third-year IT students with Japanese skills.  Students who meet the N3 level of Japanese language proficiency will be employed by the company.