Thủ Đức city’s Smart Operation Centre. HCM City plans to speed up digital transformation to achieve its goals of becoming a digital government and smart city this year. — Photo courtesy of sggp.org.vn

HCM CITY — HCM City plans to speed up digital transformation to achieve its goals of becoming a digital government and smart city this year.

City leaders have pointed out three major areas of focus: governing the city in the new situation (after the pandemic), building databases and linking all databases related to governance and reforming governance and finding new driving forces for future growth.

According to the Department of Information and Communications, the city will implement comprehensive technology solutions and exploit shared data for the prevention and control of COVID-19 and hastening economic recovery.

The databases contain information about the public, enterprises and land.

The department director, Lâm Đình Thắng, said the city would speed up digital transformation at governmental organisations and promote e-government to improve the efficiency and quality of public services.

At the same time the city is also deploying applications to enhance interaction between the governmental agencies and residents, help enterprises speed up digital transformation, build a digital economy and society, and quickly achieve digital transformation in priority areas such as healthcare and education.

Over 900 State agencies, corporations and non-business establishments are already using some features of an integrated data-sharing platform.

Transportation, health, education and training, environment, urban planning, and security agencies use a number of applications to  better serve the public and businesses.

In addition, HCM City will establish at least two technology innovation centres from now through 2025 to help businesses achieve digital transformation, according to the city People’s Committee.

They will strengthen supply chains, transfer technologies and innovations, carry out research into digital products, increase awareness of digital transformation, promote an innovation eco-system for start-ups, and help businesses develop digital products.

They will also tie up with prominent global partners for digital transformation and seek funding, evaluate the effectiveness of digital products and support research and development of digital products and solutions.

Assessing the city's digitisation efforts, Trần Thị Lan Hương, senior public sector specialist at the World Bank in Việt Nam, said the city would need to carry out specific transformations to boost the value of its digital economy since it has great competitiveness and better resilience after the pandemic.

It ranks fifth out of 63 provinces and cities in the index for information technology application and development.

It contributes a third of the country's GDP, and so would need to be a pioneer in digital transformation, she added. — VNS