Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) announced here Thursday at a business conference that Vietnam targets to become a powerful country in IT and communications.

According to MIC, Vietnam has 162.8 million mobile and fixed telephone subscribers nationwide, 91.2 percent of which are mobile subscribers, and mobile penetration reaches a level of 189 per 100 people. There are 26.8 million Internet users, including 3.68 million mobile broadband users in the country, and the Internet penetration is 31.12 percent.

In 2010, Vietnam's telecom and Internet businesses reached a total turnover of 162,120 billion Vietnamese dong (76.72 million U. S. dollars), an increase of 21 percent over the previous year. Vietnam is listed among the world's top 20 countries in terms of sub-contract products for export.

MIC said, during the 2011-2015 period, Vietnam expects to raise 1.5-2.0 billion U.S. dollars from official development assistance to develop its economic and technical infrastructure, including information and telecommunications.

Recently, MIC has signed public-private partnership agreements with the world's leading IT conglomerates such as Intel, Microsoft and Huawei, to train up human resources for Vietnamese businesses, award scholarships to IT students and improve the country's telecommunications infrastructure.