THE STUDY ON ICT APPLICATIONS TO VIETNAMESE TRADING VILLAGES Case study: Van Phuc Silk Village

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have contributed greatly
to the economic success of Vietnam, the second fastest developing country in the
world. Due to be the feasibility of being widely applied to many fields, ICT speeds up
the economy, changes the social structure, life style, etc. It helps narrow down the gap
between developed and developing countries.
Despite the fact of having a high growth rate, which places Vietnam among
the fastest countries in developing ICT, only small number of the population, are
utilizing the benefit of information technology. ICT in general and Internet
technology in particular seems to be known by the students, scientists or people who
works at the high level of social structure such as the government, ministry, city or
province, but has not touched to the normal citizens who live in small communes, or
less advance region which account for nearly 60% of the population. This situation
must be changed as Vietnam has entered the WTO(world trade organization) recently
and it will soon be affected by the working and living style in the developed countries
where Internet plays the crucial role in their societies. Integrating people in the
community, maintaining the tradition, but at the same time, educating them the
importance of information technology, become the priority.
Van Phuc is a typical Vietnamese trade village, which located at about 10km from
Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam. Van Phuc is very famous for its silk products,
which have very long tradition of more than 1000 years. Currently, because of its
adjacent location to Hanoi, Van Phuc has been impacted by the urbanization and
advance technologies. How to enforce the solidarity among the commune members
and to maintain the tradition becomes an emergent need. Integrating people in an
information system whereby people are closely interrelated to each other could be a
solution. The information system will help them not only share information inside the
village, but also bring economic benefits from e-commerce activities.