VietNamNet Bridge – The sixth national workshop on e-government will be held on December 16-17 in Hanoi, announced by organizers on Tuesday.

Dr. Nguyen Minh Hong, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications, said the topic of the upcoming workshop would be “Building E-government Along With Administrative Reforms”.

Hong said the gold of this workshop is changing the thinking and strategy in building e-government in Vietnam by combining the development of e-government with administrative reforms.

The organizers hoped that the 2008 workshop on e-government will have many different things from the 2007 workshop. Around 40 reports will be presented during the workshop, by officials and IT experts from the National Steering Board for IT, the Government Office, the Government Steering Board for Administrative Reforms, the Ministry of Information and Communications, and international experts.

Besides the major workshop, two specialized seminars on technological infrastructure for e-government and finance, and investment for e-government will be held. The workshop will be supported by an exhibition of IT products and solutions serving the development of e-government.

The organizers expect to welcome around 1,000 people participating in these events, which are organized by the Office of the National Steering Board for IT and the International Data Group (IDG) in Vietnam.

Deputy Minister Nguyen Minh Hong said around VND 200 billion of the state budget for IT application in government agencies in 2008 is not disbursed yet and this sum of money will be added to next year’s plan.

Nguyen Thanh Phuc, Head of the IT Application Agency under the Ministry of Information and Communications, said this year Vietnam can achieve its goals in applying IT at government agencies. The three major goals for 2008 include: applying email service to state employees, applying IT in management activities, and newly designing websites for state agencies.

According to the HCM City IT Association, Vietnam’s e-government index 2008 increases by 16 grades compared to 2005, ranking sixth in Southeast Asia.

(Source: HNM, VnMedia, ICT News)