District 12 is an urban district (quận)

Districts of Vietnam

||The provinces of Vietnam are divided into counties , provincial cities , and county-level towns .The centrally-controlled municipalities are subdivided into rural counties , county-level towns , and urban districts , which then subdivided into wards ....

 of Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City , formerly named Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam...

, the largest city in Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

.

As of 2003 the district had a population of 239,610. The district covers an area of 53 km².

Quang Trung Software City

The goal if the city is to offer a living and workplace to people particularly interested in software development as an economic incentive system to spur the growth of the software industry in Vietnam. It is sponsored by the Japan External Trade Organization

JETRO

is an independent government agency established by Japan Export Trade Research Organization as a nonprofit corporation in Osaka in February 1951, and reorganized as the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in 1958 to consolidate Japan's efforts in export promotion...

 and United States Agency for International Development

The Vietnamese government has arranged for high speed internet to be wired to the area. The city opened in 2001 and housed 20,000 people in 2010.

Legal Incentives

In order to facilitate use of this resource a number of laws have been set up.

Taxes

Companies are tax-exempt for their first four years after making a profit, and then only charged 50% of their normal taxes for the next nine years after their exemption. Overall taxes for the area are 10% for the first 15 years of the city, and 25% after that. Imported materials used for software production are import-tax free so long as they can not yet be used domestically. Exported software products are export-tax exempt. A Value Added Tax is also waived for exported software and domestically consumed software.

Foreign Workers

Special privileges are available to foreigners who are involved in a city project, particularly in getting visas and in buying or renting houses.

Cloud Service Provider

Another part of the government incentives includes a cloud computing platform for use by local companies.