The new Viet Nam e-Biz Index, part of the Government's master plan to develop the e-commerce sector, will help enhance the competitiveness of businesses and the country as a whole, according to VECOM.

The index will also accelerate the modernisation of the econ-omy, which had a GDP of US$119 billion last year, while helping concretise Viet Nam's commit-ments for international integration with WTO, APEC and ASEM.

VECOM's vice chairman Nguyen Thanh Hung said that to build the index, from July to August this year the association would survey e-commerce readiness at thousands of businesses across 63 provinces and cities nation-wide.

Results of the survey would be collected and processed to develop and complete the index, scheduled to be published in November this year, he said.

According to the master plan on e-commerce development for the next five years, The Government aims to ensure at least 80 per cent of the country's businesses have their own websites with information about their products and promotion activities while half of all public utilities providers (including those providing water, electricity, telecommunications and media) will accept payments made online.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, 60 per cent of large companies had e-commerce services during the 2006 - 11 period, of which 70 per cent had websites, 95 per cent received online orders and 96 per cent used email regularly for their business activities.
Meanwhile, up to 85 per cent of small and medium enterprises allowed their customers to place orders online and 80 per cent of them considered email as a tool for business.

In addition, 49 per cent of households in Viet Nam have an internet connection and 18 per cent make online purchases, according to the ministry.

The Viet Nam ICT index, another indicator relating to the information and technology sector, measures the readiness of ICT (information and communications technology) applications and development in provinces across the country.

The central city of Da Nang last year topped index for the third consecutive year, marking the sixth year it had been listed among the top five cities.

HCM City secured the second place and the northern province of Bac Ninh ranked third.

Source: VNS