Wednesday October 15, 11:02 AM
Vietnam's E-Commerce Industry Requires Plan to Develop
HANOI, Oct 15
Asia Pulse - Trade ministry officials have acknowledged that
Vietnam's e-commerce development is being held back by the lack of a
detailed roadmap and legal framework.
Deputy trade minister Le Danh Vinh said there are three major
hindrances to the development of e-commerce: the lack of a legal
framework, limited electronic signature and payment technology, and
inadequate security encryption.
"Despite improved awareness, the application of e-commerce is
still daunting for local businesses due to the country's dearth of
laws and limited technology," Vinh said.
Chief of the Ministry of Trade's department of informatics and
e-commerce, Nguyen Thanh Hung, said an e-commerce law should be up
and running by the middle of next year.
Hung said businesses and computer users are currently not able to
undertake e-commerce transactions because of the poor legal
protection.
Some Vietnamese online shopping sites include a warning to
customers that payment can not be executed online.
While other sites are trialling e-commerce transactions which
require buyers to undertake a number of complicated procedures.
"E-commerce is only applied in the country to exchange
information, seek partners, and introduce and advertise goods and
services," Vinh said.
A few banks have introduced online services, but Vinh said
contract signing and payment via the net are still not available.
A trade ministry survey found that up to 76 per cent of domestic
businesses are interested in business to business transactions,
prompting Vinh to ask them to hold on until next year.
"I suggest enterprises use business to business transactions via
e-commerce when the law is passed next year." Vinh said the uptake
of e-commerce is also slow because most domestic businesses are
small or medium sized and can not afford the costly software needed.
A Mekong Project Development Facility survey found only 3 per
cent of Vietnamese businesses use some aspect of e-commerce, 7 per
cent intend to use e-commerce and the remaining 90 per cent have
little knowledge of the trading mechanism.
Only 3,400, or 5 per cent, of about 70,000 businesses in Vietnam
have their own website according to www.vietnamwebsite.net.
The site said the percentage of businesses was one of the lowest
in the world.
Vietnam, with a population of 80 million, has 200,000 internet
subscribers and an estimated 2 million users.
"Taking the current development of e-commerce and the number of
internet subscribers into account, we can see that e-commerce
applications in Viet Nam are still in their infancy," Vinh said.
(VNA)
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