STRONGLY PROMOTE NATIONAL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Strongly PROMOTE NATIONAL DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

In the Documents of the 13th National Party Congress, concepts such as: Digital transformation, digital economy, and digital society were mentioned for the first time. The connotations of these concepts are also emphasized many times in goals, development perspectives and strategic breakthroughs.

Digital transformation meets development requirements

The core of the 4th industrial revolution is digital transformation with the integration of digitization, connectivity, hyper-connectivity and intelligent data processing. This is an inevitable development process globally and Vietnam cannot be left out of that roadmap.

To adapt to the new situation, the Politburo issued Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW dated September 27, 2019 on a number of guidelines and policies to proactively participate in the fourth industrial revolution, which emphasizes the urgent need to accelerate the digital transformation process. On that basis, the Government has issued the Action Program to implement Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW, and at the same time, the Prime Minister has issued Directive 01/CT-TTg dated January 14, 2020 on "Promoting the development of digital technology in Vietnam", Decision No. 749/QD-TTg dated June 3, 2020 approving the "National digital transformation program to 2025, orientation to 2020". 2030”.

Photo 1: Vision of a digital Vietnam

In particular, in the documents of the 13th National Party Congress, concepts such as digital transformation, digital economy, and digital society were mentioned for the first time. The connotations of these concepts are also emphasized many times in goals, development perspectives and strategic breakthroughs.

With the expectation that the digital revolution will truly create a breakthrough for our country in the coming decades, the 13th Party Congress Document has set out the requirement to strongly promote national digital transformation, develop the digital economy, and digital society to create breakthroughs in improving productivity, quality, efficiency, and competitiveness of the economy.

The three strategic breakthroughs outlined in the XIII Congress Documents on perfecting institutional synchronization, developing human resources and building infrastructure systems are all more or less associated with digital transformation. In particular, regarding the strategy of building a synchronous infrastructure system, the Party Congress Document emphasized a very important factor, which is focusing on developing telecommunications information infrastructure, creating a national digital transformation platform, and gradually developing the digital economy and digital society. The specific goal of developing the digital economy in the Documents of the 13th Congress clearly stated that by 2030, we should strive to complete the construction of a digital government and a digital economy of about 30% of GDP and rank among the top 50 countries in the world and ranked 3rd in the ASEAN region in terms of e-government and digital economy.

Photo 2: Practical benefits of digital transformation in life

The goal of developing the digital economy in the period 2021 - 2030 emphasized in the Documents of the 13th Congress is a correct policy, consistent with the laws of development as well as the resources and strengths of Vietnam. Developing the digital economy will be the path to creating important breakthroughs for Vietnam to achieve its goal of becoming a modern industrial country by 2030.

With the Party and State's guidelines and policies on digital transformation, Vietnam is one of the countries that soon has a national digital transformation program and strategy in the world, making Vietnam a country with awareness of digital transformation along with advanced countries in the world. This is a favorable condition for Vietnam to proactively exploit fully the opportunities brought by the technological revolution and make breakthroughs and change rankings.

Remarkable results

In recent times, every person has probably more or less felt about the changes that the process of digital transformation and building a digital economy has created in many aspects of social life. The role and importance of digital transformation has been shown through many benefits that people enjoy, including the fastest and most equal access to all social services, creating a modern, civilized and smart life and living environment. Some milestones of the digital transformation process can be highlighted such as:

Over 50% of ministries, branches and localities have developed and started implementing programs, projects and plans on digital transformation. Many Vietnamese technology enterprises have mastered core technologies and developed technology platforms for digital transformation. There have been about 40 "Make in Vietnam" platforms launched. The application of digital technology and digital transformation for businesses is also promoted. The Ministry of Information and Communications has launched a Portal to support small and medium-sized enterprises in digital transformation, and has so far supported hundreds of businesses in using digital platforms to transform digitally. In addition, activities promoting the application of information technology and digital platforms in trade promotion and brand promotion in a combination of direct and online helpEnterprises can effectively access partners and export markets. Specifically, in 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, ministries, localities, and business associations organized over 500 international trade promotion conferences online. As a result, over 1 million online trading sessions were conducted, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese businesses were supported to promote online trade with foreign partners across continents. Online trade promotion activities have helped Vietnamese exporters save trade promotion costs while still maintaining and developing good relationships with foreign partners in all markets; has mobilized the entire system of Vietnamese commercial counselors abroad to participate, contributing to great supportproviding support to localities, businesses and especially farmers in consuming agricultural products in situations where direct trade promotion activities cannot be carried out.

In the field of administrative reform, after the national document communication axis and the national public service portal came into operation over the past year, it has contributed to saving thousands of billions of dong and tens of millions of labor hours. Nearly 3,000 public services are integrated on this system, creating an unprecedented change compared to having to go to administrative agencies as before.

In the medical field, the Telehealth network with 1,000 newly connected remote medical examination and treatment facilities has erased the medical gap between regions, between central and local levels. Thanks to that, the referral rate decreased to less than 10% compared to the previous rate of 30%, saving thousands of billions of VND each year and reducing the load on the health system.

In recent years, the education sector has also promoted the application of information technology in teaching, learning and management, achieving many important results. Faced with the strong need for digital transformation, the education sector has determined its mission to be a pioneer in implementing this task, contributing to shortening the innovation process, improving the quality of education, especially for remote areas, and actively contributing to the national digital transformation process. In particular, in 2020, facing the complicated situation of the COVID-19 epidemic, together with the whole country, the entire education sector actively participated in the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic. The education sector has drastically, strongly and effectively implemented epidemic prevention and control solutions with the goal of "ensuring health,"The safety of pupils, students, and teachers comes first"; at the same time, implementing the motto "temporarily stop going to school, do not stop studying". The Ministry of Education and Training has directed schools to teach via the internet and on television; enhance security and safety for students and teachers during the process of teaching via the internet; promptly issue instructions on streamlining the general education program for localities to promptly implement. Schools have been proactive and quickly adapted to developments and epidemics. diseases, vividly and effectively applying information technology and digital technology to teaching, showing that the ability of teachers to use information technology has been significantly improved. Up to now, online teaching has become a mustt essential activities, maintaining interaction between teachers and students. The specific solutions that the education sector has recently implemented in the prevention and control of COVID-19 have shown that the entire sector has done quite well in applying digital technology in management, teaching and learning. According to the 2020 PISA report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Vietnam's online learning to prevent and control COVID-19 has many positive points compared to other countries and territories. Specifically, Vietnam has 79.7% of high school students studying online. This rate is higher than the general average of OECD countries (67.5%). This is a very remarkable result.

Perception plays a decisive role

The achieved results have confirmed that Vietnam can strongly apply digital technology in the economy and is fully capable of strongly developing the digital economy and digital society in the near future. However, to reach the goal of building a digital economy and digital society, there is still a very long road with many problems. In particular, raising awareness and determination about "digital transformation" is extremely important.