Looking back over 4 years of digital transformation, how do you evaluate the achievements that Vietnam has made?
Dr. Vo Tri Thanh
Dr. Vo Tri Thanh: Previously, when talking about the concept of "digital transformation", people thought it was something quite abstract, but with the naked eye, it can be seen immediately that the digital story and digital transformation have now penetrated every individual and every family. We can feel most clearly the shift of electronic transactions. Now, smartphones with online shopping applications have become an indispensable tool in the lives of every Vietnamese person, from urban to rural areas. People shop without having to go to the counter, without having to pay cash directly, everyone has a banking application, everyone knows how to transfer money, knows QR Codes... these are positive movements that can be seen immediately.
Along with that, start-up, innovative enterprises, and technology start-ups are increasingly developing. Vietnamese enterprises clearly identify digital transformation as the way to go, the future of the economy. FDI capital flows into the information technology and digital technology sectors are also increasingly strong.
In particular, people clearly see the story of digital transformation through changes in the public service sector. In our country in recent years, online public services have made remarkable progress. People can sit at home to register for passports, change driver's licenses, pay traffic violation fines... Enterprises that previously had to run back and forth for a whole week to complete the customs declaration of import and export goods can now sit at home and do it right on the computer; all kinds of tax settlement, land dossier submission...
That is about intuitive perception. As for the data, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications, the contribution rate of the total digital economic components to the target GDP by 2025 is about 25% and by the end of 2023 it has reached 16.5%. Vietnam is also the fastest growing e-commerce country in East Asia, among the 10 fastest growing countries in the world... We are behind other countries, achieving such a growth rate is quite positive.
Online public services are the core of e-Government.
According to you, what is the main pillar that has pushed Vietnam to "run" so fast on the digital transformation track?
E-Government is one of the three main pillars of the digital transformation “revolution”, along with digital society and digital economy. In fact, the concept of e-Government has appeared in our country for 2 decades, but it was only in the last 5 years that positive results were truly recorded, thanks to the strong determination of the Government.
According to statistics, ministries and branches have now provided 80.53% of administrative procedures as online public services, of which 47.79% are provided as full-process online public services. Up to now, 63/63 localities have completed the consolidation of public service portals and electronic one-stop systems into the Provincial Administrative Procedure Information System. Some localities have implemented full-process online public services very well, such as Da Nang with 95.56%; Ca Mau with 91.99%; Tay Ninh: 91.98%. Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ninh, Thua Thien-Hue... are also leading localities.
Why do I say that Digital Government must be the most important pillar? Because online public service activities, if well implemented, will bring many benefits to people and businesses, not only reducing time and costs for society but also contributing to transparency and improving the investment and business environment. That is the foundation for the development of digital society and digital economy.
As you cited, currently 80.53% of administrative procedures are provided as online public services, but the 2023 Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) report shows that the majority of people have not used online public services. In 2023, only about 8.3% of respondents said they used the National Public Service Portal and 7.6% used the Provincial Public Service Portal nationwide. How do you view this difference?
That is also the problem I want to mention. On one side is the ability to provide complete services, but more importantly, the rate of people actually using them. There are many reasons why the gap between these two indicators is quite large in many places and localities. It could be because we have not communicated enough, or because the operations are not simple or convenient enough. Not to mention the situation of public service portal errors; submitting, updating, supplementing, and tracking the status of online applications is still inconvenient, and there are difficulties in online payment... In many cases, after filling in all the information, the network crashes, the computer freezes, or the application is returned for unknown reasons, so people choose to do it directly to speed things up.
In addition, the situation of personal information theft is increasingly flourishing, at first it is a nuisance, then it is a scam, making many people afraid that declaring personal documents, papers, and documents through software will be revealed and data will be leaked.
Obviously, behind the positive changes that we can see immediately, there are still many things about digital transformation that need to be looked at more deeply and fully.
What exactly, sir?
Digital transformation is truly a revolution. It changes the operation of the entire economic and social life, the way of production and business... and above all, it is an institutional revolution. In this sense, we see that the current legal tools and operating methods, although much more complete than before, are still far from expectations.
People and businesses expect digital transformation to not only be about using smartphones but also to create increased productivity through better governance and smarter production and business; but clearly the productivity growth rate in recent years has not reached the set target. Even the leading economic regions have seen a decline in productivity growth.
Not to mention human resource training, human resource issues for this revolution are not really skilled enough. For example, we want to develop the semiconductor industry but the technology workforce is very lacking, and skills are also weak. Labor productivity and human resource skills mainly contribute to the industries that produce electronic information technology equipment, digital equipment, etc., while the integration of digital and technology into traditional industries such as agriculture, industry, and services to make businesses smarter, more efficient, and more productive is still quite limited.
For Digital Government, it is necessary to understand that it is not simply about providing online public services but also about real reform and change in quality; not only about the interaction between the Government and businesses and people, but also about the business investment environment. These things must become symbols of the efforts of a government and a country that is rising to keep up with this revolution.
The digital transformation revolution is not purely a technological revolution but also an institutional one. The speed or slowness of digital transformation depends a lot on thinking, policies, methods, and management, in which the leader plays a decisive role, not only in directing but also directly doing and using. The center of this transformation is people, and more than the mind, it is the heart.
Dr. Vo Tri Thanh
Thanhnien.vn
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/chuyen-doi-so-da-len-loi-vao-tung-ca-nhan-gia-dinh-185240906220450569.htm
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