In 2019, Da Nang’s information technology (IT) industry recorded notable achievements.

In 2020, the Da Nang authorities will give more practical support for IT companies.

Da Nang is now home to about 3,800 IT companies with nearly 32,000 employees, accounting for 14% of the total number of firms operating in the locality. The average annual growth rate of this industry was 20%.

Over the past year, the IT sector earned an estimated 30,050 billion VND in revenue, up 19.2% against 2018, and exceeding the year’s target by 4%. Of this, the revenue of the IT service sector went up by 21.3% against 2018 to reach an estimated 19,570 billion VND, whilst software exports surpassed the year's target by 11% to hit around US$ 89 million. Some software firms maintained an average annual growth rate of between 25% and 30%.

General Secretary of the Da Nang Software Association Dang Ngoc Hai said, last year, Da Nang was one of the most attractive destinations in Viet Nam for domestic and foreign investment. In addition, the city was very inviting to foreign investors which were already present in Viet Nam and showed keen interest in opening their branches in the city.

Most notably, a number of foreign IT companies, especially those from Europe, Australia and America, developed software centres in the city in order to seek highly potential outsourcing resources.

In particular, in mid-December 2019, the KMS Technology Vietnam company, a provider of software development outsourcing and independent software testing services, opened its branch office in Da Nang. This is the first of its kind in the central region, and the 6^th office in Viet Nam and in the world.

The company’s Director Nguyen Van Hieu added that the city boasted its high-quality and hard-working human resources. In addition, a non-stop international air service has been opened to connect Da Nang with the USA which houses the headquarters of the KMS Technology and the majority of KMS Technology's customers. Besides, the municipal authorities always created very favourable conditions for domestic and foreign IT firms to operate effectively. These were the main reasons why his company decided to open a branch office in the city.

“In addition to software development services, KMS Technology is providing consulting services and solutions for digital transformation, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered supply chain in Viet Nam, and Asia as a whole. Human resources of the KMS Technology Da Nang are also expected to be involved in these aspects in the year ahead”, Mr Hieu noted.

Da Nang attracts a large number of both domestic and foreign IT firms thanks to its good and hard-working human resources.

Mr Nguyen Tuan Phuong, the Director of FPT Software Da Nang, remarked, last year, many of IT businesses operating the city focused on developing new products or services with high technology content and high added value apart from offering software outsourcing services.

The city-based Technocom which specialises in providing software services to the global market is a typical example.

Director of the Technocom Nguyen Xuan Huy revealed, last November, his company entered into cooperative agreements on developing and building IT training programmes with two partners from South Korea. Currently, 5 of the company’s IT engineers are working in the USA.

In the time coming, Technocom will expand its operation into Europe and Australia in order to facilitate its engineers to work there.

Meanwhile, the city-based Toan Cau Xanh (Green Global) company established a group of AI specialised engineers to develop this new technology-related products.

Mr Le Tri Hai, the Director of the company, said that his company would develop smart monitoring and management systems for shops, supermarkets, factories, hospitals, and hotels by combining machine learning with data mining. He emphasised such products were very popular in many retail stores in Japan.

This year, the city is giving top priority to promoting the development of electronics, telecommunications, and IT aspects in association with the digital economy during its progress by 2030 with a vision towards 2045.

It is expected that the IT sector would contribute about 10% of the city’s gross regional domestic product (GRDP) by 2025, and 15% by 2030.

By KHANG NINH - Translated by MAI DUNG