Japan ICT Day connects Vietnamese, Japanese firms

They also touched upon ways to develop human resources in service of IT collaboration and improve the capacity, scale and quality of cooperation projects.

Apart from exchanges and business networking activities, the two-day event featured exhibitions introducing products and solutions of Vietnamese and Japanese enterprises.

On this occasion, the Vietnam-Japan IT Cooperation Committee and the IT Innovation and Strategy Centre of Okinawa prefecture of Japan signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation.

In his opening remarks, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Trung Chinh, said Da Nang has set up cooperative ties with Japanese partners and cities like Yokohama, Nagasaki and Kisarazu.

With 177 projects worth over US$800 million, Japan is the biggest foreign investor in Da Nang, making up 25 percent of the total foreign direct investment (FDI) in the city, Chinh said.

Besides, Japan is also the biggest software export market of IT firms in Da Nang, accounting for more than 36 percent of the market share, he added.

Chinh said activities within the framework of Japan ICT Day 2019 are expected to help expand cooperation between Vietnamese and Japanese businesses in the IT sector, especially digital transformation, big data and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), amidst the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Da Nang is now the IT centre of Vietnam’s central region, with 93 percent out of over 3,800 businesses operating in the software and IT sector.

Up to 38 universities and vocational colleges in the city are offering IT training courses, recruiting 3,500 students each year.

Takeo Nakajima, Chief Representative of the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) in Hanoi, cited an annual survey by the organisation as saying that about 70 percent of Japanese firms operating in Vietnam said they are planning to expand business in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.

In 2018, 248 Japanese enterprises invested in the field of IT in Vietnam, making up 8 percent of the total amount of Japanese investment in the country, he said.

According to Junko Kawauchi, Vice President for Global Affairs of the Japan Information Technology Services Industry Association (JISA), as of June 2019, Japan had lacked about 781,000 IT engineers and up to 95 percent of Japanese firms said they are interested in employing Vietnamese engineers.