Digitalisation to pave way for Hai Duong’s development

Secretary of Hai Duong Party Committee Pham Xuan Thang (centre) is looking forward to enhancing the province’s digital potential, Photo: Thanh Chung

On March 26, Hai Duong Party Committee enacted a resolution on its digital transformation strategy until 2025, with an orientation towards 2030. This is the first thematic resolution of the action programme’s implementation as outlined by the 17th Hai Duong Party Congress.

The resolution shows the assessment of trends and impacts of digital transformation on economic and social life and its implementation in the province. It states rapid and sustainable development geared towards green growth and digital transformation is the province’s inclusive development strategy.

According to the set goals, efforts will be made to place Hai Duong among the 20 leading cities and provinces in nationwide digital transformation by 2025. By 2030, Hai Duong plans to be among the 15 leading cities and provinces.

Building a digital government and developing a digital economy and society has become an important and decisive driving force to promote rapid and sustainable socioeconomic development, contributing to accelerating administrative reform, improving the investment environment, enhancing the operational efficiency of the Party committees, authorities, and agencies in the political system, and improving the efficiency of business operation.

By 2025, 80 per cent of level 4 online public services should be provided on various means of access, including mobile; and 90 per cent of work records at the provincial level, 80 per cent at district level, and 70 per cent at commune level will be processed online.

Other targets include for the digital economy to account for 20 per cent of regional GDP; striving to have over 700 digital technology enterprises and universal access to 4G/5G mobile network services and smart mobile phones. Half of Hai Duong’s households will have at least one e-payment account, and Hai Duong city, Chi Linh city, and Kinh Mon will be established as smart cities.

By 2030, all level 4 online public services will be provided online, including on mobile devices. Labour productivity will increase by at least 10 per cent per annum, with the digital economy account for 30 per cent of regional GDP and more than 1,000 digital enterprises.

“With the aspiration of lifting the province’s socioeconomic development even faster in the next 5-30 years with limited resources, digital transformation presents a lifeline and the motivating force to spur development,” said Pham Xuan Thang, Secretary of Hai Duong Party Committee.

Thang also noted that digital transformation must be a top commitment of Party committees and management authorities at diverse levels. It is crucial to focus on changing the perception and mindset of officials, party members, and people towards digital transformation.

The foundation

Truong Gia Binh, chairman of leading IT giant FPT Corporation, emphasised at an online conference on digital transformation in early 2021 that Hai Duong has converged sufficient conditions to implement digital transformation in some fields like tourism, agriculture, healthcare, and digital business development.

The current formula for the province’s digital transformation is the 3S (smart-small-scale) motto. Accordingly, digital transformation needs to start smart, and first on a small scale to evaluate results. When successful, such projects can quickly expand their scale.

“We believe that digital transformation is a chance for success as it encourages people to embrace creativity,” said Binh.

Looking at a specific example, the production and consumption of agricultural products has been one of Hai Duong’s successful applications in digital transformation.

The province’s agricultural products have been developing sustainably through the application of high-tech mixed with standard farming methods to produce organic agricultural products with high quality and economic efficiency. Hai Duong has also invested in building agricultural brands, geographical indications, and traceability for the promotion of its produce in domestic and global markets.

Over the past few months, Hai Duong focused on Thanh Ha lychees. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic raging, the province’s produce was selling very well and, for the first time, also on leading e-commerce platforms such as Sendo, Voso, Postmart, Lazada, and Alibaba.

In addition, Hai Duong has launched the website of the Provincial External Information Portal. Nguyen Van Nhat, deputy director of the provincial Department of Information and Communications, noted that the launch demonstrates the province’s great efforts in innovating and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of state management, on par with the e-government development roadmap.

“This provides a bridge connecting Hai Duong with cities and provinces across the country, as well as regional and global markets,” said Nhat.

In production and services, the implementation of a project at the Hai Duong Power Co., Ltd. improved production and business efficiency, as well as service quality, labour productivity, and management capacity. During this project, new power supply and service provisions have been quickly digitalised. The number of received requests completed online reached a high rate of 99 per cent.

In addition, Hai Duong also helps cover 50 per cent of the cost for digital signatures for newly established enterprises and supports the development of e-commerce, contributing to improve the competitiveness of enterprises and the province.

Elevated position

Hai Duong is currently home to 14,000 enterprises with business registration certificates, about 9,000 operating enterprises, ranking 13th out of 63 cities and provinces nationwide. On average, Hai Duong has 47.5 enterprises per 10,000 people, ranking 19th out of 63 localities in Vietnam.

“When approaching the digital transformation, enterprises and entrepreneurs in the province could take advantage of and be part in Hai Duong’s economic development, helping to boost revenue from production and business activities,” said Le Hong Dien, director of Hai Duong Department of Planning and Investment.

As such, digital transformation is an effective solution in the current economic landscape. With it, enterprises could receive support quickly in their operations, especially amid a raft of trade and investment agreements between Vietnam and many countries. Those positive factors help local businesses to deeply engage in global supply chains, improve their competitiveness, and expand to new markets.

As a major policy of the government that Hai Duong is committed to implement for green growth, the digital transformation and included innovations promise sustainable development, thus lifting Hai Duong’s position and status.

“Once we have a full awareness of digital transformation, we should identify and effectively implement solutions, mechanisms, and policies to develop the digital economy in the direction of green growth. The digital transformation is based on the four pillars high-tech and supporting industry; commodity agriculture – focusing on high-tech and organic agriculture; high-quality services; and green, smart, and modern cities,” said Trieu The Hung, Chairman of Hai Duong People’s Committee. “The top goal is to turn Hai Duong into a modern-oriented industrial province by 2025 and becoming a modern industrial locality by 2030.”