Dam made the above statement at a seminar themed “Digital transformation: Opportunities and Challenges” organized by the Viet Nam Association for Information Processing (VAIP) in Ha Noi on July 3.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam attends a seminar themed “Digital transformation: Opportunities and Challenges”,    Ha Noi, July 3, 2020

Dam said Viet Nam’s digital transformation plan, which engages the involvement of the Government, businesses, and individuals, figures out priority domains with a view to better providing services to citizens.

Priority sectors, as Dam said, include health, education, finance, banking, agriculture, environment and culture among others.

During the COVID-19 outbreaks, digital transformation has been accelerated in such fields like education, online public service, e-commerce, and online healthcare, according to the Deputy PM.

The above progress shows that once we identified must-do tasks, we must roll up sleeves to get things started and try to improve products from the COVID-19 pandemic time, Dam emphasized as a lesson learnt.

The Ministry of Health has completed the provision of online public health services at level-4 for all of the sector’s administrative procedures after six months of implementation instead of the previously five-year roadmap, he added.

The online public services at level 4 means service payments can be done online, and transaction results are available either online or by post, upon request.

Dam urged the VAIP and related associations to coordinate with the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) in quickly developing new measurements on IT application of ministries and localities while beefing up dissemination of knowledge on IT to the whole society.

In addition, the Vietnamese business community needs to move forward in solidarity to jointly address tasks defined by the MoIC.

Speaking at the seminar, Nguyen Huy Dung, Director-General of the MoIC Authority of Information Technology Application said a digital Government would help enhance transparency and reduce corruption and a digital economy will help create new values and new growth models.

Meanwhile, a digital society will allow citizens to access to new services and knowledge on an equal footing, Dung said.

Dung highlighted the leading role of IT businesses in the national digital transformation process, thus they need to introduce e-services toward a digital government and to invest in human resource training and innovation.

As the digital transformation is advancing rapidly in the country, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) reported that more multinationals are seeking to co-operate with MIC in the switchover.

Data from the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment showed that some US$1.3 billion worth of FDI in Viet Nam was spent on sci-tech last year, ranking fourth among the most attractive sectors.

Experts said as Vietnamese businesses’ awareness about the importance of technology has much improved, they are rushing to apply advanced technologies, thus creating new opportunities for multinationals.

Seeing the growth potential ahead, many tech giants, such as Lenovo, Ericsson, Qualcomm are targeting the Vietnamese market./.