By IANS
Mumbai : Indian global learning solutions giant Aptech Ltd Thursday signed an agreement with Vietnam's leading IT company, FPT Corp, to open 20 new IT & multimedia training centres in the Southeast Asian nation by 2008.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by R. Krishnan, executive director, Aptech Ltd, and Truong Gia Binh, CEO, FPT Corp, who was part of the high-level business delegation accompanying Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on his three-day visit to India.
Dung lands in New Delhi on the third leg of his visit Thursday night, after Kolkata and Mumbai.
Aptech expects total revenue of over $30 million from the education business in Vietnam for the three-year period (2007-09).
"Given the successful business relationship and the addition of 20 new IT and multimedia centres, it is envisaged that the system-wide revenues in Vietnam should grow to $12 million in 2009 from $6 million in 2006 and total revenue for 2007-09 to be over $30 million," Krishnan said.
"With Aptech's cutting edge technology curriculum, quality systems and processes and innovative methodology, graduates from Aptech have been engaged by IT industry in Vietnam and are performing very well.
"With the addition of 20 new centres, we would be able to reach IT & multimedia education to larger number of people in Vietnam."
Added FPT CEO Binh: "The successful partnership between FPT & Aptech is producing quality software engineers to support Vietnam's IT Industry, which is contributing towards Vietnam's economy and making it emerge as an established player in the Southeast Asian region."
Aptech and FPT fostered a business alliance in 1999 to impart quality IT education and training to create a skilled IT workforce for the Vietnam Software Industry, an Aptech official said.
Starting with two IT education centres under the Aptech Computer Education (ACE) brand, the partnership between Aptech & FPT has scaled up the Vietnam operations to 31 centres, offering the ACCP (Aptech Computer Certified Professional) and AMSP (ARENA Multimedia Specialist Program) curriculum.
Aptech Computer Education and ARENA trained 30,057 students in Vietnam in 2006.