Viettel builds high-tech centre

LookAtVietnam – The Military Telecom Corporation (Viettel) yesterday began construction on the Viettel high-tech centre project, with a total investment capital of US$50 million, including equipment expenditure.

An architectural rendering of Viettel’s new high-tech centre project. The project has a total investment of $50 million, including equipment expenditure.

Viettel general director Hoang Anh Xuan said: “Located in Hoa Lac high-tech zone, the 25-floor office building will be the first work of the project and is scheduled to be finished in two years.”

Xuan said that the Viettel high-tech hub would be one of Viettel’s projects providing infrastructure for the Viettel-Chunghwa Telecom joint venture’s operations in Viet Nam.

Viettel plans to establish a large modern data and digital centre to satisfy international standards and potential customers like the Government, commercial banks, big corporations and multinational companies.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan said: “In addition to providing advantages in human resources, a large-scale modern data centre offers advantages in developing information technology (IT).”

“There is big demand on the domestic information market for data system like that, thus Viettel’s high-tech centre and the development of the IT industry nationwide will create an important foundation for the development of multilateral IT, contributing to forming brand names for the domestic digital industry in the international market,” Nhan said.

The Hoa Lac High-Tech Zone is the biggest software park and high-tech industrial area in the country, occupying 500ha of research and development areas. By 2015, the zone is expected to have 134,500 residents.

“A project to expand the Lang-Hoa Lac Highway will be completed at the end of 2010 and the Government has also approved a new railway linking the zone to the centre of Ha Noi,” said Deputy Minister of Science and Technology (MoST) Nguyen Van Lang, who is also head of the Management Board of the Hoa Lac High-Tech Zone.

He said: “Investment projects in Hoa Lac Zone this year represent only one-third of the total projects in 2008, due to the decline of FDI capital in Viet Nam and the effects of the global economic crisis.”

“However, in 2009, the zone’s management board still hopes to issue licences to between eight and 10 projects worth $500 million because we have already issued them to sizeable projects worth about $100 million in the first month of this year,” Lang added.

An official at MoST said that the biggest obstacles the zone’s management board faces in developing the high-tech zone was investment capital. Zones often require hundreds of millions to billions of US dollars in other developed countries like the US and Japan.

In addition to capital, well-educated human resources, clear administrative policies, timely site clearance and good infrastructure were also essential factors which needed improvement, Lang said.

Chunghwa Telecom is the largest telecommunications company in Taiwan and also currently the largest mobile phone operator there.

Viettel Telecom was ranked 83rd among the 100 biggest telecom companies in the world with a total brand value of $536 million, according to Informa PLC, a world leading statistics provider.

Viettel also ranked by the World Communication Awards as one of the four leading telcom companies in a developing country.

Wireless Intelligence, a global database of mobile market information, put the military-run telecom service provider as the 41st largest telco in terms of the number of subscribers among 650 telcos worldwide.

Viettel currently provides mobile phone, fixed line telephone, wireless fixed telephone and internet services.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News