Vietnam to Start Issuing E-passports in 2011

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has recently ratified the “Vietnam E-passport Production and Issuing Project”, which consists of four sub-projects and costs VND1,024 billion. The first project covers “Investing in e-passport production lines and software”.

 

The second project includes “Investing in infrastructure, equipment and software for issuing, controlling and managing electronic passports at Ministry of Public Security’s units; investing in building centres for issuing keys and digital signatures, registering and examining e-passports, centres for system management, and national centres for e-passport, entry and exist database managed by the Ministry of Public Security.” The third project covers “Investing in infrastructure, equipment and software for issuing e-passports in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ units.” The fourth project covers “Investing in infrastructure, equipment and software for controlling e-passports, entry and exit at border gates managed by the Ministry of Defence.”

 

The project will be piloted in four years. In the first phase from January 2011 to December 2012, e-passports will be issued only inside Vietnam. In the second phase from January 2013 to December 2014, Vietnam’s representative agencies abroad can issue e-passports. Checkpoints will be set up at border-gates to inspect the e-passports.