The National Conference on e-Government 2021 was held online

Need digital transformation on potential fields

In the morning of September 9, 2021, the National Conference on e-Government 2021 was held online with the topic: "Solutions to improve the efficiency of online public service operations, digital government development for the period of 2021-2025 & Smart Cities development solutions, e-commerce contribute to promoting the digital economy." The conference was organized under the auspices of the Government Office, Ministry of Information and Communications, organized by IDG Vietnam and the Vietnam Digital Media Association.

The workshop was held in the context of the rapid development of the e-Government system and online public service provision in Vietnam. In the field of online public service provision, after more than a year of implementation, the public service portal has integrated more than 2,900 administrative procedures of 21 ministries, sectors and 63 provinces, more than 57 million records have been processed and saved about 8,000 billion VND per year.

According to the United Nations report, in 2020, Vietnam's e-Government development rank has increased two places, to 86th out of 193 countries and territories. However, compared to other countries in Southeast Asia, Vietnam still holds the 6th position in the ranking of e-Government development. This makes Vietnam's competitive advantage in attracting investment and developing the country not really breakthrough.

According to many experts, in the coming period, in order to improve competitiveness in the region, Vietnam needs to make more efforts to improve the efficiency of e-Government, and at the same time focus on areas with great potential, such as: Smart cities, e-commerce - two fields that are expected to make practical contributions to stabilizing the economic and social situation in the post-COVID-19 period.

In the field of smart cities, currently, 38/63 provinces and centrally-run cities have been implementing the Smart Cities project. Vietnam has proactively approached and oriented smart city development quite early, catching up with other countries in the world; actively implemented digital transformation; Information infrastructure has basically been covered by 4G; access to information technology services and the rate of using mobile devices are quite high compared to the world. In the field of e-commerce, Vietnam's e-commerce in 2020 has increased by 16% and reached a scale of over 14 billion USD. In which, the field of online retailing of goods increased by 46%, ride-hailing and technology food increased by 34%, marketing, entertainment and online games increased by 18%. Not only that, the average growth rate for the period of 2020-2025 is predicted to be 29% and by 2025, the scale of e-commerce in the country will reach 52 billion USD.

In that general trend, the way to accelerate the digital transformation of areas of strength will help Vietnam create a national competitive advantage.

Target for qualifying public service to level 4

Speaking at the workshop, according to Mr. Nguyen Huy Dung, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Information and Communications, Vietnam has issued a strategic document at the national level on the development of e-Government, towards a digital government. This strategy has become the guiding guideline for all of Vietnam's actions over the next decade - the decade that is assessed by the United Nations as acting in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. Developing e-Government, Vietnam's digital government is also associated with solving problems to better serve people and businesses; towards the development of digital economy and digital society.

According to Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Huy Dung, if it has to choose the most important and meaningful work of the strategy to fully and completely deploy it in 2021, the Ministry of Information and Communications will choose the goal of bringing All online public services of ministries, branches and localities are eligible to level 4. Currently, this rate has only reached about 45%. From the status to the target is still quite far, but with the goal of digital transformation to be done quickly and based on the foundation, this is a feasible goal if there is a synchronous and drastic participation of the ministries, sector and locality.

In parallel with bringing public services to level 4, according to Mr. Nguyen Huy Dung, a breakthrough solution is needed to improve the efficiency of online public services according to 2 criteria. First, set a goal for each level 4 online public service to have at least 1 online user for every 1 offline user. Secondly, for online public services that have reached level 4 for at least 1 year, the online application rate should reach at least 30% in 2021. Online public services really serve businesses and people.

At the conference, the Organization Board held an online honoring ceremony for 18 typical digital transformation leaders from government agencies. In which, Mr. Ngo Hai Phan, Director of Administrative Procedures Control Department (Government Office) was honored as one of 18 typical digital transformation leaders of Government agencies.

The workshop also includes 2 parallel thematic sessions: The first Symposium has the topic of Smart Cities Development; The second Thematic Session is titled Digital Transformation of Small and Medium Enterprises towards E-commerce development with the participation of the Vietnam E-commerce Association, Vietnam Small and Medium Enterprises Association and other eCommerce solution providers.

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