Tiếng Việt
普通话
Vietnam aims to have 50% enterprises operating on a digital platform by 2025, according to Nguyen Thanh Hung, vice minister of the Information and Communications.
The target is part of a broader project for Vietnam’s digital transformation until 2025, focusing on three main pillars, namely enterprises, the state sector and the society, Hung said at the Vietnam Private Sector Economic Forum 2019 discussing the prospect of digital economy in Vietnam held on May 2.
In the state sector, 80% of the public services, as well as most of transactions between citizens, enterprises and government agencies should take place online, Hung said .
For the society, the project would support citizens to have greater access to digital infrastructure at an affordable price of “less than 2% of the people’s average income,” Hung added.
“The development of digital economy would contribute to higher productivity through new business models such as Grab, Uber, Airbnb, while enterprises are motivated to revise their business operations for greater efficiency,” Hung stated.
Vu Dai Thang, vice minister of Planning and Investment, referred to a research conducted by Australia’s data innovation group Data61 that a successful digital transformation would help Vietnam’s GDP increase by US$162 billion over the next 20 years.
Previously, a report jointly launched by Google and Singapore’s state investment firm Temasek estimated Vietnam’s digital economy was worth US$3 billion by 2015, which later increased to US$9 billion in 2018 and is on track to reach US$30 billion by 2025.
At the forum, country managing director of ABB Vietnam Brian Hull said it is essential for Vietnam to raise higher awareness of digital economy among the people, at the same time supporting wider application of technologies in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“SMEs without the support of the government and larger enterprises would face difficulties to get hold of new technologies,” Hull stated.
Hull also mentioned the importance of ensuring cyber security and highly qualified human resources, which are important parts during the process of digital transformation. “These would be key factors for Vietnamese hi-tech companies to take their products globally.”
Ho Tu Bao from the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (VIASM) said database, especially open data, is the core of a digital economy.
“Enterprises through open data could have a better understanding on the business environment, legal aspects and other frameworks that support their operations efficiently,” he concluded.