HO CHI MINH CITY (09/07/2000) - Vietnam will liberalize its ISP (Internet service provider) market and bring access charges down to the levels of other countries in the region, according to Tran Luu Chuong, a member of the IT Masterplan Task Group of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment.

These two initiatives, along with building the country's IT infrastructure, creating a suitable legal environment for IT and electronic commerce and training sufficient skilled IT manpower, will be the basis of the government's master plan for the IT industry here for the next five years, Chuong said in a keynote address at Vietnam IT Week here Thursday.

The cost of leasing a 64K bps (bits per second) line in Vietnam is currently US$2,500 per month, compared to $500 in Malaysia and $380 in Singapore, stifling the use of electronic commerce, Chuong said.

"We will adjust our charges to be no higher than the average for the region," he said. "There will be no limit to the number of ISPs, and software and other high-tech companies will be allowed to set up direct access to the overseas Internet."

Currently, only five ISPs have been licensed to operate, and the international gateway is controlled by Vietnam Data Communications Co. (VDC), a subsidiary of monopoly telecommunications operator Vietnam Posts & Telecommunications Corp.

Other goals in the master plan to build the IT industry include the following:

-- to increase the Internet bandwidth to and from Vietnam to 100M bps by 2001, and 1G bps by 2005-- to turn out 40,000 IT graduates a year by 2005.

-- to be assembling 700,000 PCs a year by 2005, with 70 percent of the parts to be sourced in the country-- to have 25,000 programmers generating annual revenue of $500 million by 2005 -- to invest at least 2 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) in the IT industry by 2005-- to improve the level of cooperation with foreign companies in all areas of IT"The aim is to make IT use as pervasive in Vietnam by 2005 as it is now is the most highly developed ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries," he said. "But we know that doing it right will not be easy."