The Viet Nam Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) Conference 2017 opened in Ho Chi Minh City on 19 October, aiming to introduce Viet Nam as an attractive destination for IT services that is comparable to leading countries in the world.

Participants in the Viet Nam Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) Conference 2017 pose for a photo

The two-day event saw the participation of representives from organisations and businesses from 20 countries and territories, including the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea, India, China, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore.

Viet Nam is given the 6^th position in the A.T. Kearney’s 2017 Global Service Location Index. It ranked 1^st amongst the world’s business process outsourcing (BPO) centres in the 2016 list of Cushman & Wakefield. Meanwhile, the country was also named one of the 6 leading destinations for technology transfer in the Asian-Pacific region in a 2016 report of advisory firm Gartner.

Mr Dao Dinh Kha, Director of the Department of Information Technology under the Ministry of Information and Communications, said although Viet Nam follows other countries like India and China in terms of the software market and IT services, it boasts certain advantages and potential for this sectors.

Particularly, the country is completely able to stand firm in the fierce competition in the software sector with other nations, he added.

However, Director of the HCM City Investment and Trade Promotion Centre Pham Thiet Hoa said though Viet Nam’s software industry has been highly valued by many rating organisations in the world, most of local software companies are small. Therefore, they have encountered numerous difficulties when advertising their products in global markets.

It is necessary to step up promotion and investment to further market Viet Nam’s IT sector to the world, Mr Hoa noted.

At the ITO conference, there will also panel discussions on IT manpower in Viet Nam, the prospect of BPO services in the country, Viet Nam-Japan technology cooperation, and the application of new technologies to enhance competitiveness and reap success.

(Source: VNA/ DA NANG Today)