Spot Vietnam on the globe Or Maybe Google Earth?

By Shalabh Pandey • December 2, 2006

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Question: So you know China is Asia’s fastsest growing country in the region. Which is the second fastest? India? Wrong! It is…well, Vietnam!

Vietnam? The same country ravaged by War till 1975 or so and later a civil war- is now back with a bang. And why am I blogging about Vietnam for God’s sake? Well, if Mr Mr Bush can come all the way to Hanoi,) they held the Asia-Pacific leaders conference (APEC) recentl) I can at least blog! And well, because lets say I’m going to feature a lot of the Asian countries in my blog, specially with respect to Internet.

Its amazing how this region is taking on to the world- India And China apart, there are countries with a force to look out for. And I need not even speak of the highly developed Singapore, (which by the way is doing magnificently well, still) . Economies like Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and even Philipines are being viewed with great interest from Westerners. With great growth potential and a threshold population with spending power, the region is proving an excellent haven for growth stinted topline starved companies and countries.

Especially the Internet scenario in these countries is hotting up. All major companies already have a base or are trying o expand into these countries.

But back to Vietnam- It all started around 6 years back with the opening up of their economy- exports were amongst the first ones.

My fav topic- comparision with India:
India has a billion people, well Vietnam has more than 84 million, The GDP growth rate is more- around 8.4% as compared to 7.6% of India (albiet volume being about 15 times lesser), the literacy rate is much higher than India though- at around 90%!

The comparison is not for anything else, but, well as I said in earlier blogs- I know much more India, and making a comparision helps one understand beter. There is no real overall competition with India, but for an economy that is expanding so fast, it does make one to stand up and take notice.

Its ironical though that the most leftist, communist, closed economies have started growing so fiercly once they loosened up and beame more ‘global’. Does it prove again that ‘capitalism’ (profit, growth…business?) is more effective in bringing up standard of lives than the communist, see RED philosophy?

Manufacturing and exports are BIG in Vietnam, and to some extent, flagship sectors of the economy. But where there is literate, relatively cost efficient labour, to my mind, that is a potent force for the growth of a strong IT sector. With time, Internet, digital and outsourcing industry is bound to make way in the country. And the right time might be NOW.

Companies like Intel are setting up a 115 acre site for Test and assembly plant- and spending a billion dollars for increasing digital literacy, and Victoria’s secret manufactures a lot of their stuff in Vietnam
Hutchison Telecommunications (Vietnam) S.A R.L. (Hutchison Telecom Vietnam), in cooperation with Hanoi Telecommunications (Hanoi Telecom), has selected Nortel to build a nationwide CDMA2000 1X network in Vietnam. The duo revealed that when this network is completed, it will enable delivery of advanced broadband mobile services in Vietnam. Once that happens,(the broadband growth) the country will be zipping thorugh the Info Superhighway like nobody’s business.
According to popular news site VietnamNet ( http://english.vietnamnet.vn/interviews/2003/07/219762/) IDG Chairman Patrick J. McGovern recently pledged that IDG should spend around 100 Million USD in Vietnam and is hopeful that the country will become an IT force to reckon with.
As someone said (dont remember who but does not really matter)- Vietnam has finally arrived!