Vietnam Steps back on World IT Map

 

This index rates society information development level by IDC and World Time. The ISI combines 15 variables arranged in four infrastructures of computer, internet, telecom and society to calculate and rank nations.

 

According to the report released in June 2005, the top ten ISI nations are Denmark, Sweden, Singapore, the US, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Canada and South Korea. IDC also announced four bottom ISI nations consisting of Turkey, India, Vietnam and Indonesia. Vietnam dropped from the 52^nd position to the bottom position, 53^rd.

 

The report of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) showed that the software piracy of Vietnam in 2005 was 90 per cent, a decrease of 2 per cent against 2004, retaining the world top software piracy position. The piracy caused loss of US$38 million to the software industry. However, Vietnam saw the decrease in both violation rate and violation value. The Asian average violation value per head is fourfold higher than Vietnam while the world violation value average is tenfold higher than Vietnam.

 

Region	Rate 2005 (per cent)	Rate 2004 (per cent)	Rate 2003 (per cent)	Position 2005 (Mln USD)	Violation value/person 2005 (USD)
World	35	35	36	34.297	>5
Asia	54	53	53	8.050	> 2
Vietnam	90	92	92	38	0.5

 

According to the definition of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the NRI measures the propensity for countries to exploit the opportunities offered by information and communications technology. The NRI is a composite of three components: the environment for ICT offered by a given country or community, the readiness of the community’s key stakeholders (individuals, businesses, and governments) to use ICT, and the usage of ICT amongst these stakeholders. The ranking table had 75 nations in 2002, 82 nations in 2003 102 nations in 2004, 104 nations in 2005 and 115 nations in 2006.

 

The NIR Rankings 2005-2006 placed Vietnam in the 75^th position out of 115 countries, a fall of seven ranks against 2005 with respective scores of -0.47 and -0.46.

Countries	Score 2006	Rank 2006	Rank 2005	Evolution
United States	2.02	1	5	4
Singapore	1.89	2	1	-1
Denmark	1.80	3	4	1
…
Vietnam	-0.47	75	68	-7
Ukraine	-0.49	76	82	6
Morocco	-0.51	77	54	-23
Namibia	-0.53	78	55	-23

 

 

A country’s E-Readiness Index, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit and the IBM Institute for Business Value, is a measure of its technology infrastructure, business environment, consumer and business adoption of e-commerce, social and cultural environment, legal and policy environment and supporting e-services. The year 2005 saw the index of all countries increasing and digital divide among countries narrowing.

 

According to the E-Readiness Rankings released in April 2006, Vietnam ranked 66^th out of 68 nations with 3.12 scores (compared with 3.06 score in 2005). The rankings of Vietnam were the 56^th out 60 countries in 2002 and 2003, the 60^th out of 65 in 2004 and 61^st out of 65 in 2005.

 

The E-government index is a composite measurement of the capacity and willingness of individual countries to use e-government for ICT-led development. The capacity is assessed by financial investment level, infrastructure, human resource, policies, and management organisation while the willingness is an assessment of a country’s ability to provide information and knowledge for the pubic and business. This index is calculated from three basic elements of the presence of government-built websites, ICT infrastructure, and education-training. These elements are calculated and presented by three criteria the Web Measure Index, the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index and the Human Capital Index.

 

The United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance (UNPAN)’s report released in December 2005 showed the E-government index of Vietnam was 0.364 scores, a bit higher than the score of 0.338 in 2004, ranking 105^th, a seven-position promotion compared with 2004 - a great progress after a 15-rank drop in 2003.

 

According to the International Telephone Union (ITU), the Vietnam’s growth rate of fixed line telephone in the period from 2000 to 2005 was 44.1 per cent annually, the world’s highest rate, compared with Asian average growth of 11.9 per cent and the world average of 5.3 per cent. Asia’s fast-growing countries included China with 19.3 per cent and South Korea 25.1 per cent

 

The Vietnam’s mobile phone growth rate in the 2000-2005 period increased 62.7 per cent annually, a high rate in comparison with the Asian and global averages. However, the slow growth in other countries was attributed to the already-developed status. For example, the ratio of mobile phone subscribers per 100 inhabitants of Singapore was 101.28 and South Korea 79.39. Meanwhile, the density of Vietnam in 2005 was 10.68, much lower than the Asian density average of 22.24 and the world average of 39.10.

 

Indicators (ITU 2006)	Vietnam 2005	Asia 2005	World 2005
Telephone subscriptions/100 inhabitants	29.42	37.39	49.45
Mobile phone subscriptions/100 inhabitants	10.68	22.24	31.90
Main telephone lines/100 inhabitants	18.73	15.76	19.84
Fixed telephone line growth in 2000-2005	44.1 per cent	11.9 per cent	5.3 per cent