Vietnam’s Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) the responsibility to research, develop, and submit a national digital transformation plan to the government.
The project would be an overall plan to move towards a comprehensive digital economy and society by 2030.
One of the tasks and solutions determined in the draft of the plan was to create an environment for developing digital products and services and new business models. This will improve the capacity of innovation and develop digital businesses.
At Internet Day 2019, the Deputy Minister of MIC said that innovation and creation are strategic and decisive factors in the country’s digital economic transformation.
The conference, titled ‘Internet Vietnam: Innovation for digital transformation’, was held in Ha Noi, earlier this month.
The Deputy Minister said the country is witnessing the birth of many tech companies operating in a number of fields with new business models this year.
This affirmed the determination of many businesses in becoming digital service providers and pioneering in the creation of a digital society, he said.
This year also marked an important milestone in the research, application, and development of 5G technology in Vietnam.
MIC has licensed 5G trials for three major telecommunication businesses.
The state-run organisation, Viettel, has approved a budget of VN 500 billion (about US $21.5 million) for developing 5G microcells. It is investing in a VN 200 billion lab (about US $8 million) for 5G technology, as OpenGov reported earlier.
The second organisation Vingroup, a Vietnamese conglomerate, is focusing on researching and establishing lab rooms. The third developer, the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT), set up a group of engineers between 2014 and 2018 and aims to provide full package 5G solutions from 2019 through 2023.
Vinsmart representatives expressed their request for MIC to create incentives for frequency licensing to test its 5G devices as the company is not specialised in telecommunications.
This would create an important infrastructure for the development of the digital economy and better meet the demand of increasing connectivity speeds and scales.
A report on the digital economy in Southeast Asia showed that Vietnam’s digital economy has grown at 40% a year, leading the region.
The country’s global innovation index is ranked in 42nd place among 129 countries.
With a population of more than 96 million people and more than 60 million people using Internet services, Vietnamese users spend an average of more than six hours a day online.
About 94% of internet users in the country use the internet daily.
Looking at statistics, it can be seen that the majority of the country’s economic and social activities take place online, the Deputy Minister said.
The internet has penetrated all aspects of society; changed social awareness created more innovative and effective business models, and accelerated the process of sustainable growth.
Within the framework of the conference, the Vietnam cloud computing and data centre club was launched to promote the market of cloud computing services and the development of data centres nationwide.