HANOI, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam will host the fourth World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) in Hanoi from Aug. 26 to 28, Vietnam News Agency reported Monday.

    This is the first time the forum is held in Asia, according to the report.

    With the theme of "Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Sustainable Development", the forum includes eight plenary meetings and 32 discussions, focusing on women's role in IT development, and various policies and experiences of countries in IT development.

    The fourth WITFOR is expected to bring enormous benefits to the Asian region, and open up new and broader paths for developing countries to apply achievements in ICT into socio-economic life, said Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Minh Hong.

    It will provide an important foundation for local and foreign policymakers, scientists, experts and IT businesses to obtain accurate visions and assessments on current ICT development. This will then push them to exercise more efforts to bridge the gap between developed and developing countries, said the report.

    Initiated by the International Federation for Information Processing since 2003, WITFOR contributes to taking the World Summit on the Information Society's Plan of Action one step forward to help developing countries achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, according to the report.