Wall Street Journal writer James Hookway reported this week that, “Gartner Inc. now ranks Vietnam among the top five providers of IT outsourcing services in Asia—alongside China, India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka—up from 30th place in 2010.
“The consultancy described the country, in a survey released in February, as a low-cost option for international firms where English usage has improved in recent years.
“Local programmers and developers already are stepping up their game. More than 100,000 businesses registered websites in 2013, according Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communications’s latest data, up 170% from the previous year.”
The Journal article added that, “Its high-school students ranked 12th in the world in science and mathematics in an OECD survey last year, compared with the U.S.’s ranking of 28th.
“Even though the country has the innovation and skills to produce more homegrown companies, it has to do a better job of marketing itself to bring in more venture-capital investment, [Truong Gia Binh, chairman of FPT] said.
“Google parent Alphabet Inc. recently announced plans to train 1,400 engineers in the country as part of a social outreach effort. Google CEO Sundar Pichai visited the country while on vacation in December and attended a forum with Vietnamese tech entrepreneurs. He said local startups could achieve global success in large part due to rising Internet use and a strong entrepreneurial culture. Speaking to about 200 people at a local cafe in central Hanoi, Mr. Pichai said he didn’t see any reason why Vietnamese companies couldn’t follow their counterparts in India and China.”
Mr. Hookway also noted that, “Vietnam’s government also has eased on laws allowing for faster registration of new technology companies.”
