Vietnam has announced the Industry 4.0 Summit 2019 will take place in Ha Noi on 2nd and 3rd October, gathering 2,500 government leaders, representatives from embassies, international organisations, localities, and businesses.
The summit’s theme is ‘Digital Vietnam: Accelerating digital transformation toward sustainable development’.
It will be held by the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission and several other ministries and sectors. It will evaluate the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution in Vietnam and disseminate guidelines and policies of the Party and the State.
According to the organisers, there are more than 40 countries and territories, including developing countries, that have issued strategies and action programmes relevant to the fourth industrial revolution. In Vietnam, the politburo has also worked to upgrade the digital capacities for a powerful 4.0 transformation.
The seminar series focuses on five main topics- smart banking, smart cities, smart production, smart energy, and the digital economy.
At the forum, an exhibition will take place with 80 booths from domestic and foreign companies, showcasing technologies from four areas- finance-banking, production, energy, and smart cities.
The summit is expected to help businesses learn and seek opportunities for co-operation and investment in Vietnam.
Around 85% of industrial enterprises in the country lag behind the fourth industrial revolution, and only 13% function at a basic level, according to the director of the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR).
In a draft national digital transformation plan, one of the country’s objectives is to be among the top four countries in ASEAN in terms of digitalisation by 2025 with 80,000 digital technology companies.
Earlier, the government released the National Digital Transformation Project. It shows that digital transformation deeply impacts structure and relationships in the global economy. Replacing manual labour with automation, capital with knowledge and data, and changing consumption habits as well as the behaviour of society.
The project sets specific objectives. They are:
- By 2030, Vietnam’s digital economy should grow 20% per year.
- It should be one of the top 20 countries in the world and the top three in ASEAN in the global and regional competitiveness index, respectively.
- It should be on the list of top 50 e-government countries.
- Labour productivity should increase by 8-10% per year.
According to a report released in 2017, the impact of digital transformation in the Asia-Pacific region was an increase of about 6% in its GDP. The figure is expected to be 25% this year and 60% by 2021.
Research shows that digital transformation also increased labour productivity by 15% in 2017, which is expected to be 21% by 2020.
To improve the country’s digital infrastructure, the government launched a ‘Make in Vietnam’ social network, last week. The app, Lotus, is centred around content that is developed and owned by Vietnamese citizens.
Building social networks and search engines by Vietnamese people not only benefits society and users but also brings economic benefits from the revenue of digital advertising, thereby creating opportunities for domestic businesses.