Data is considered a core element of Vietnam’s digital economy. However, it is not well shared and connected to serve the country, a press release has said.
Speaking at an online seminar held by the government web portal, the CEO of the DTT Technology Joint Stock Company said that the country has not yet seen the “power of exploiting data.”
He stated that places still manage data in the traditional way; in an ask-give manner instead of sharing data, so “a national database is still an impossible mission.”
There have been changes in the awareness of sharing information in many. National digital data will take place soon. It will be a waste if the information is closed, not shared, he added.
The deputy director of the Department of Computerisation under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), mentioned that Vietnam could develop a digital economy with well-grown technology in which data is the basis for change.
Vietnam is the fastest-growing digital economy in the Asia Pacific (APAC), MIC claimed last month. The country’s Internet economy reached some US$ 12 billion in 2019 on a 38% annualised growth rate since 2015.
With the gross merchandise value (GMV) of its Internet economy accounting for over 5% of the country’s GDP in 2019, Vietnam is emerging as the most digital of all economies in the region.
The deputy director told the seminar that MIC is drafting a decree on the management, connection, and sharing of digital data, in which it makes it compulsory for all state agencies to share data with other state agencies.
Local data infrastructure was not built with an overall strategy and data is still distributed in different places. It is difficult to connect all the data now, as not all the data is secure. Vietnam has to have a well-protected overall data system first.
Local technology could now protect the data, he noted, but the country needs “determined minds from all the decision-makers.”
Vietnam one of the leading countries in approaching and moving forward to make regulations on open data management that help people, businesses and the whole society, the release claimed.
The deputy director of the Information Technology Centre, Vietnam Social Insurance, said his agency had been aware of the role of data sharing for a long time.
He explained that their database included 86 million people with health insurance and about 15 million people participating in social insurance, which is one of the largest data stores in the country.
Vietnam Social Insurance has worked on connection and data sharing. Currently, it is connecting and sharing data with eight service providers.
The deputy director also said they worked with the tax agencies and the Ministry of Justice to connect their client’s data with nearly 13,000 medical examination and treatment facilities.
It is necessary to connect with more and more agencies to enrich the database, he added.
Experts at the seminar agreed that national databases on agriculture, finance, and population and land management were still needed.
