Acting Minister of Information and Communications wants to develop a 'made in Vietnam' social network

The breakthrough goals before the "storm" of the 4.0 revolution were emphasized in the speech of Acting Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung at the working session of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc with the Ministry on September 8.

Mr. Hung started with the expectation that the Prime Minister will set the goal of Vietnam becoming a software development powerhouse, the telecommunications industry will return to the Top 10 countries developing telecommunications like in 2008-2010; Top 30 in the world in information technology; Top 20 in information security, network security; Top 5 in telecommunications equipment technology, producing Vietnamese microchips for export; defense and security industry in the Top 20...

To achieve those goals, Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung mentioned a lot about building things that are "made in Vietnam" to compete with "big guys" like Google and Facebook.

He cited that the current revenue from social network advertising is 370 million USD. However, the majority of the market share is in the hands of foreign enterprises such as Google reaching 135 million USD with 35 million users, Facebook 235 million USD with 60 million users. He also said that foreign social networks are not currently complying with Vietnamese laws on taxes, safety and security requirements... Meanwhile, the market share of Vietnamese enterprises is very small with 436 domestic social networks. Even the most famous unit with 40 million users has a revenue of only 7 million USD.

This agency proposed a number of policies to support Vietnamese social networks, with the goal of having the same or more Facebook accounts in Vietnam (60 million) by 2022 and accounting for 60-70% of the market share. With the view that "it is time to stop", Mr. Hung proposed a plan to use both economic and technical measures to manage foreign social networks.

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Along with developing Vietnamese social networks, the Ministry's leaders also set a goal of putting Vietnam in the top 10 countries in digital ecosystem development, with 60-70% of people using domestic ecosystems.

The Ministry of Information and Communications said it wants to take the lead in building Vietnam's digital ecosystem, focusing on Vietnamese social networks. According to Mr. Hung, the digital ecosystem includes social networks, search engines, browsers, operating systems and anti-virus software, of which the most important are social networks and search engines. The construction of Vietnam's digital ecosystem will mainly mobilize social resources and businesses, not necessarily state-owned companies but Vietnamese businesses.

“Without a Vietnamese digital content ecosystem and Vietnamese social networks, we would not have the power to negotiate with Facebook and Google. They would continue to disobey Vietnamese laws, while we would not dare to cut off services,” the Acting Minister said.

Mr. Hung also shared very detailed information about the picture of each field, including the software industry. He said that Vietnam currently has about 9,000 enterprises with a total revenue of 3.8 billion USD. However, Vietnam lacks leading enterprises. According to the Acting Minister, with such a large number, only 10 companies with a revenue of billions of USD will change the face of the industry. With a growth target of 20% per year, the Ministry's leaders aim to become a software powerhouse and software exporter.

Mr. Hung expects that Vietnam's terminal equipment manufacturing sector will account for 60% of this market and move towards export. The Ministry also established the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications Industry with the task of promoting the production of "Made in Vietnam" terminal equipment and network equipment, promoting the electronics industry, including the defense industry and developing IoT and 4.0 technology.