Vietnam lucrative market for digital economy

The country has a population of nearly 100 million, ranking 15th in the world, but the size of its digital market stands at only 25th position among the 39 countries surveyed in 2022 by the Financial Times and Omdia.

However, the gross merchandise value of its digital economy increased by 28% to reach US$23 billion in 2022 from a figure of US$18 billion in 2021. It is expected to grow by 31% to hit US$49 billion in 2025, according to the "e-Conomy SEA 2022" report released by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company.

Meanwhile, the Department of Digital Economy and Digital Society reported that the digital economy enjoyed growth in all three aspects of the ICT economy, platform digital economy, and sectoral digital economy. IT services therefore contributed the most to this economy at about 30%, followed by e-commerce at 14.3%, and hardware production at 12.83%.

The Lao dong (Labour) daily cited Tran Minh Tuan, director of the Department of Digital Economy and Digital Society under the Ministry of Information and Communications, as saying that digital market, digital space, and digital data are necessary to develop a digital economy. In order to achieve this the first thing that has to be done is to ensure digital infrastructure.

He noted that the Ministry has taken measures aimed at building infrastructure to guarantee the overall development of the digital economy.

Emphasising the importance of human resources, Vu Thi Minh Tu, director for external relations at Lazada Vietnam, stated that the quality of human resources for the nation’s digital economy remains modest, while this is one of the factors affecting the economy’s sustainable development.

The Central Institute for Economic Management said that in order to secure sustainable development, the country should perfect its legal framework, including regulations and policies on cyber security, competition, and taxes, in a way that promotes the role, responsibility, and rights of buyers.