Report on Information and Communication Technology Statistic
in Viet nam
1. Background
The access and use of information and telecommunication technology (ICT) is
considered essential for the development of the Vietnamese society, both from an
economic and social viewpoint. ICT is growing at a fast rate in Vietnam but
statistical indicators to measure this development are falling behind. Current
indicators are few and compiled on an ad-hoc basis. At the moment there are nine
ICT indicators out of 350 indicators within the national statistical indicator system
(NSIS ). The main part of the ICT indicators is related to Internet and mobile
subscriptions. There is now a demand by the government to have statistics on a
regular basis that reflects different aspect of ICT. There is a need both for
indicators that reflect the growth of the ICT sector and the use of ICT among all
sectors of the economy. At present the General Statistical Office (GSO) is working
on developing indicators on ICT that are intended to measure the development on
a regular basis.
2. The current situation regarding ICT statistics
At the General Statistical Office (GSO) the Department of Trade Services and
Price Statistics (TSP) are responsible for the reporting of ICT statistics demanded
by the Government.
TSP currently compiles the following reports:
• Monthly reports on telecommunication and internet subscriptions
• Annual reports: Total turnover and Infrastructure of post and
telecommunication enterprises. Total number of telephone subscribers by
province. Export/Import of post and telecommunication services.
Data on Telecommunication and Internet subscriptions are collected on regular
bases by the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) and reported to
TSP. This data are collected from telecommunication providers from
administrative sources. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT) collects data on
the number of establishments with a website and the number of establishments that
engages in e-commerce. TSP is currently only colle cting data on ICT on ad hoc
basis.
3. Status of Enterprise and Household registers
The Business Register that was established in 2001 has not been updated regularly.
There are three different sources used for the business register:
• Tax Authority
• Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI)
• Annual Enterprise survey
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There are inconsistencies, gaps and overlaps between the different sources that
make the maintenance of the register demanding. E.g the data from the Tax
Authority and MPI use old ISIC (1993) classification. The register from MPI
consists of all active enterprises but also enterprises that are no longer active. The
Tax Authority register includes less number of enterprises. The data from the
annual Enterprise Survey includes also some enterprises that do not pay tax.
This year, the provinces have received lists of all enterprises in the Tax Authority
register. The lists have been completed by the province staff with new enterprises,
and not active enterprises removed. (This work is completed at province level so
the results can possible be used as a sample frame for the survey). The complete
data from all provinces is expected to be available by the end of the year.
Sampling frames used for individuals and household survey are currently based on
the master sample constructed from population data from the 1999 population
census (Pettersson 20091). The main user of the master sample is the VietNam
Household Living Standard Survey (VHLSS). Other surveys usually use a
subsample from the VHLSS (Pettersson 2009). Population censuses are carried out
every ten years, the most recent one in April 2009.
4. Identified problems
4.1 The Enterprise survey
The draft questionnaire from TSP department includes questions about access and
use of ICT, barriers to use ICT together with economic variables (in values) such
as investments (split by financing source), regular expense on ICT (split by
different categories) and export and import of ICT. There are also questions on
number of employees (also split by age group and educational level) and
background variables that are the same as in the Annual Enterprise survey such as
year of business licence and main activity. There are quite many questions that do
not correspond to a specific indicator in the draft list. We su ggest that the
indicators will be harmonised with the questionnaire and that the need for each
indicator is evaluated.
The questionnaire contains many variables that might be difficult and time
consuming for the respondents to answer. One reason is that the figures are not
easily disclosed from the book-keeping. Therefore it is important to test the
feasibility of all variables in the survey and to adjust the variables as much as
possible to fit the accounting of the enterprise and give instructions.
Many different aspects of ICT are included in the same questionnaire. It will
probably not be possible for one single person to answer all questions. The
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respondent has to collect the information from different functions of the enterprise.
Separate surveys with relevant questions to accountants, ICT-managers and others
might give higher quality and faster response. The ICT - usage survey is addressed
to the ICT manager and the ICT Investment/expenditure survey to the accounting
manager. Trade and production of ICT goods and services are included in specific
surveys that include all types of products and services.
4.2 The Household/Individual survey
As described previously some questions in the draft questionnaire concerns
individuals while others concern households. Often, only one member of the
household will answer for the whole household. Experiences suggest that
respondents have difficulties answering (because they don’t know) for other
members of the household, which generates non-response and/or erroneous
answers. It is therefore important to keep the number of questions that concerns
households to a minimum. In the TSP draft questionnaire there are quite a lot of
questions directed to the household. Given the fact that the TSP, most likely will
face the problem described above we recommend that the draft questionnaire
should be revised so that questions that concerns households will be kept to a
minimum. If it is found that respondents have difficulties in answering questions
for the household then these questions should be considered to be deleted.
4.3 The Surveys on Household establishments, ICT- sector and
Economic, Administrative and Civil Services
The TSP draft questionnaires for these sectors include to a large extent the same
questions as the enterprise survey. For the ICT sector one extra module is added
about production of software and hardware. The same indicators as for the
enterprise survey are to a large extent relevant also for these sectors.
5. Situation regarding ICT data of Vietnam
5.1. Achieve results :
a. Data on ICT Infrastructure: There are some data on developing in
Communication and ICT such as: total of telephone lines; 2. Telephone lines per
100 inhabitants; 3. Total of broadband Internet subscribers; 4. Total of people use
Internet; 5. Percentage of population use Internet per 100 inhabitants; 6. Total of
using computer (Enterprise; administrative and Non- profit establishments;
households);
b. Data on ICT use: 1.Proportion of households with a computer; 2. Proportion of
households with access to Internet; 3. Number of ICT enterprises; 4. Number of
enterprise having a website; 5. Number of enterprises having transaction on e
commerce and some other indicators of administrative and non – profit
establishments….
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c. Data on trade in ICT goods: Total value of import and export Post -
Communication services
5.2 Weakness:
- In Vietnam, some main data of ICT Vietnam has been collected from other
sources such as: frequency report and surveys, although all ICT data has been
divided in to 4 groups: ICT infrastructure, ICT access and use, e - commerce; ICT
producing sector; but these data hasn’t been completed and incoherent
- The period of collected data is not same so data of indicators were not collected
in a series time.
- The collected data from various surveys have not identified on scope and
respondents
Therefore, data on ICT hasn’t reflected a comprehensive picture on situation
developing ICT of Vietnam.
