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Vietnam has committed to having 50 per cent of its businesses operating on a digital platform by 2025, the country’s deputy minister of information and communications, Nguyen Thanh Hung, has revealed.
As part of the process of digital conversion, the government of Vietnam will focus its efforts on three main areas, spanning enterprise, state agencies and society.
The plans for state agencies is to have 80 per cent of public services implemented to level four, the highest level of digital transformation, with the majority of transactions between people and businesses with State management agencies on a digital environment.
In regards to the whole of society, the draft bill advocates cost control, and seeking to popularise digital capacity for people, creating favourable conditions for them to access digital infrastructure at a reasonable cost, with broadband access rates set under two per cent of their income.
Referencing a Google and Temasek study, Vu Dai Thang, deputy minister of planning and investment, said that the country’s digital economy had reached US$3 billion in 2015, increased to US$9 billion in 2018, and is expected to reach US$30 billion by 2025.
Furthermore, research from Data61 (Australia) should that the country’s GDP could increase by about US$162 billion over the next 20 years if it is successful in digital transformation.
Thang also played up the role that enterprises play in digital economic development, stressing the need for enterprises to not just discover solutions, but to also find solutions to apply digital technology, implement digital transformation and participate in building the fundamental elements of the digital economy.
Thang also revealed that the government continues to actively research and develop policies for Vietnam to quickly exploit such potential benefits.
A national strategy on Industry 4.0 is also being developed by Vietnam, including policies for digital economic development.
Other proposals include the promotion of the digital economy in every economic sector, encouraging the application of technology in both small and medium enterprises, ensuring cyber security and promoting the leading role of the Government in this field, as well as facilitating a favourable institutional environment for business activities and strengthening investment in infrastructure for digital conversion.
Vietnam has been in the process of shifting its economy to one that embraces digital transformation for some time, enacting a new cyber security law in 2018 that requires global technologies to set up local offices and store data locally.
The country also wants half of its social media customers on domestic social networks by 2020, however, such proposals have had their fair share of critics.
