The state-run Corporation of Financing and Promoting Technology, FTP, has embarked on a five-year-plan to go global with fourteen offices in the US, Japan and Europe.

Last year the software firm, which is Vietnam's largest Internet provider, opened for business in India.

Company officials say the new office in California's Silicon Valley will offer services in banking technology, telecommunications, the Internet, e-commerce and business solutions.

It'll be followed by another US office, and a third one in Canada employing a total of about one-hundred-and-sixty Vietnamese programmers.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service