Forget China and India, Vietnam is tipped to become the hottest offshoring destination within the next five years.

That is the bold claim made by international recruitment company Harvey Nash, which recently acquired Ho Chi Minh-based recruitment business SilkRoad for US$1.8 million.

Harvey Nash cited the fact that Vietnam has the second-highest gross domestic product growth after China and that it's now the third-largest offshore-services destination in Southeast Asia.

The Vietnamese labour pool also has about 80,000 IT graduates, a figure that is increasing by 9,000 per year. More than half of Vietnam's 84 million population is under 25-years-old, and 83 percent of all graduates are science-based.

But Mark Kobayashi-Hillary, co-author of Global Services: Moving to a Level Playing Field, said Vietnam's growth still pales in comparison to that of China and India, which are each churning out 2.5 million graduates per year.

"There would have to be unbelievable growth in Vietnam. But it's not really about one country competing with another. We are moving towards global services, and the whole pie is getting bigger," he said.

Companies already outsourcing IT services to Vietnam include Honda Motor and Intel.

"With a growing and youthful IT workforce, low costs and high aspirations to develop its software services," SilkRoad CEO Marc Voss said in a statement, "Vietnam is a natural offshore location and has all the ingredients to become the leading market choice in the next few years."