Vietnam takes advantage of opportunities in digital economy

• Feb 04, 2021

Vietnam aims to become a developing country with industry marching towards modernity and income surpassing the lower average level by 2025; a developing country with modern industry and higher average income by 2030; and a developed country with high income by 2045.

With such important changes, VietNamNet introduces readers to a number of articles on the topic.

Online transactions

At noon, many people in green and red uniforms stop in front of a rice shop at the Ho Dac Di – Dang Van Ngu T-junction in Hanoi. They are delivery people working for food order apps.

While there are many people in front of the shop, some of the dining tables inside the restaurant are empty.

“Customers now tend to order food via apps instead of coming directly to the shop,” a worker said.

The trend of buying things online and making transactions on digital environment has now reached small shops.

In order not to lag behind, the rice shop owner had to change his way of doing business to adapt to the new circumstances. Store windows are now filled with many images of food order apps and e-wallets.

Ha Dang Son, director of the Center for Energy and Green Growth Research, said he uses ePoint, an app of the Hanoi Power Company, a subsidiary of the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) on his smartphone. Now he can see the volume of power he consumes and the amount of money he owes every day.

“With the app, I can see all the figures I want to know related to electricity consumption. And all families can also see this if they install the app and use electronic meters,” he explained.

About ePoint, Vo Quang Lam, EVN’s deputy general director, said the app allows clients to watch over their electricity consumption daily and monthly, accumulate points in exchange for gifts, make payment for electricity bills, and enjoy other features.

Lam said that digital transformation is procreding rapidly at EVN.

“Previously, my office was full of documents. But the volume of paper documents has decreased recently,” he said.

All units belonging to EVN are now using e-Office for daily operations.

EVN also uses digital signatures on electronic papers within the group. Most of the documents are circulated in the electronic mode, except for confidential papers which need to be managed in accordance with the law.

According to Lam, since the use of e-Office, the volume of paper reports and documents has decreased by 86 percent.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam many times stressed that digital transformation is an important solution to help the country develop rapidly and sustainably.

Nguyen Thanh Nam, deputy CEO of Viettel, said that Viettel has turned from a small company established in 1989 into a leading telecom and technology group thanks to digital transformation.

Viettel has digitized its internal administration system by applying modern technologies with international standards. The group has digitized 100 percent of papers, liberalized 50 percent of manual works and automated 30-40 percent of operations.

Unlike other businesses, Viettel did not see minus revenue growth during Covid-19. The revenue from fields related to digital transformation, domestic apps and 10 foreign markets offset the segments affected by the pandemic.

Viettel has digitized its internal administration system by applying modern technologies with international standards. The group has digitized 100 percent of papers, liberalized 50 percent of manual works and automated 30-40 percent of operations.

Reducing paperwork

Nguyen Anh Duong, a respected economist from the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM), cannot remember how many meetings he has attended so far. However, he can see big changes in the way of approaching documents.

Duong said at international conferences, many countries once used printed documents. Later, organization boards asked to use electronic versions instead of paper ones for less important documents. But all countries marked their documents as ‘important’ and used printed versions. Only in 2020, when conferences had to be organized online, did the use of electronic versions become inevitable.

According to Duong, the Covid-19 pandemic has not diminished Vietnam’s interest in digital economy. Instead, the disruption of many economic activities based on traditional platforms has forced Vietnam’s agencies and businesses to apply digital platforms in their management, production and business activities.

Le Xuan Sang, deputy head of CIEM, said that the pandemic has changed people and businesspeople’s behavior in corporate governance, spending and communication. This has forced enterprises to change their way of running businesses, as well as their behavior toward consumers and communications with other enterprises, government agencies and related organizations.

Nguyen Duc Vinh from the Institute of Sociology under the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) commented that shifting activities from the real world to the digital world is the best possible solution to cope with the pandemic.

As Vietnam is undergoing the digital transformation process, its technology firms have entered a new era. According to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), since the Make in Vietnam campaign was launched one year ago, 13,000 digital technology firms have been created. Vietnam now has a community of 58,000 digital technology firms.

Experts believe that the plan to have 100,000 digital technology firms by 2030 can be fulfilled by 2025.

“Vietnam is a developing country, but this doesn’t mean that it will be behind in digital economy development,” Duong said. 

Luong Bang

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/en/feature/vietnam-takes-advantage-of-opportunities-in-digital-economy-709114.html