Vietnamese IT officials are hoping to bring internet access to as much as 90% of the local population.
According to Tuoi Tre, the national government aims to increase the country’s number of internet users from the current 53% of the population to 80-90%.
Ministry of Information and Communications official Nguyen Thanh Hai, who is the director of the Information Security Department, told attendees of a seminar held last Wednesday in Hanoi that Vietnam is home to almost 50 million internet users, 78% of whom use the worldwide web on a daily basis.
Currently, Vietnam ranks 16th among Asian nations for its number of internet users, the news outlet reports, and above the global average of 46.65%. However. in order to increase its rate of internet access, the country must tackle some serious problems plaguing internet connections in Vietnam, chairman Vu Hoang Lien of the Vietnam Internet Association said, according to Tuoi Tre.
These issues include temperamental IT infrastructure – just last month, Vietnam unveiled a new and improved undersea internet cable, however the country has still been plagued by frequent breaks to its other undersea cables – as well as a lack of human resources in the IT field and weaknesses in information and internet security, as evidenced by events such as last year’s hacking of computer screens at both Tan Son Nhat and Noi Bai International Airport by Chinese hackers.
Further information on how or when Vietnam plans to reach this target is not yet available.
