Vietnam established its e-government in 2000 and has entered the digital transformation process since 2020 with the introduction of the National Digital Transformation Scheme, focusing on three pillars of digital government, society, and economy.

In order to first accelerate the missions in the National Digital Transformation Scheme until 2025 with a Vision to 2030 and second to raise the public’s awareness about the usefulness of this process, the Prime Minister has named October 10 each year as the National Digital Transformation Day. This year’s theme for the day is ‘Exploiting digital data to create values’.

The global digitalization embedded in Industry 4.0 has risen the role of data, and various useful data-related technologies like AI, IoT, Big Data, Blockchain have given birth to many hi-tech industries. Digital data are considered the most important, valuable, and limitless resource of any countries in this era.

In Vietnam, digital data are better and better recognized. At the beginning of this year, the Information and Technology Ministry introduced the goals of protecting personal data, establishing ministerial and local databases, ensuring data security, forming large database centers throughout the country, and processing digital data to create new values for the national economy.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung shared that successes in creating and exploiting data are the core of digital transformation. However, this Ministry also warned of the inability of certain ministries, agencies, and localities to fulfill the two mentioned missions, assigned by the Prime Minister in the Action Plan for 2023 – Year of National Databases.

In particular, the proportion of ministries, state agencies, and localities to issue a database list under their management along with a specific roadmap to exploit them accounts for just over a half. Only about 20 percent of ministries, state agencies, and localities have a plan for their own shared databases (dates of issuing, data lists, the minimum level to be achieved in each stage).

The National Digital Transformation Authority (under the Information and Communications Ministry) informed that among the 8 main criteria on digital data, five have not reached even half of the set targets. The percentage of ministries and provinces offering data sharing on an integrated platform in August 2023 was merely 14 percent, compared to this year’s target of 100 percent.

In August, the proportion of ministries, state agencies, and localities using the e-databases for ministerial-level and provincial-level administrative procedures is 60.5 percent while the set target for this year is 80 percent.

Experts in the field commented that there must be a national strategy on data, where the roles of ministries, state agencies, and localities in developing and exploiting data are clearly defined. The strategy should also include policies on data categorization and mechanisms for data exploitation, a list of prioritized data. These will become the foundation for related organizations to create and then exploit digital data.

The precise categorization of data is critical to information safety, cost saving, and effective operation of Governmental units. There must be legal regulations on the types of data accessed only by the State, ministries, and the local authorities; the types to be shared and accessed by the public. All are to serve the purpose of evaluating and making decisions based on effective exploitation of necessary digital data.

Data are precious, but of more importance are data processing and exploitation. The digital data resource is made for sharing and using in order to create even more beneficial values, to serve citizens, businesses, and the Government. That is the ultimate aim of digital transformation