A business owner in Phan Rang City, Ninh Thuận Province, uses computer to introduce products on her website. —VNA/VNS Photo Nguyễn Thành

HÀ NỘI — As the central coastal province of Ninh Thuận shifted to more service industries, most of its 4,000 small businesses have been told to go digital.

Most recently, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) coordinated with the People's Committee of Ninh Thuận and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to organise a conference, aiming to raise awareness of the importance of digital transformation in doing business in the province.

MPI’s representative said that with the increasingly developing digital economy in the country and around the world, organisations, businesses and traditional models needed to make drastic changes to continue to exist and develop especially during the pandemic.

To a province with mostly agricultural production like Ninh Thuận, digital transformation was still relatively new, and at the end of March, the provincial People's Committee issued Decision 330/QĐ-UBND promulgating the Support Program of digital transformation for enterprises in the province in 2022-2025.

The province said there were about 4,000 businesses, including more than 97 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and the development of the pandemic in the past two years had severely affected them.

A province representative said from an agriculture, forestry and fisheries area, Ninh Thuận had achieved many important achievements in many fields in the last 30 years.

“From a province with a low starting point of socio-economic development, the economy has undergone drastic changes and has grown continuously for many years. From a poor low-income province has risen to become a middle-income province,” he said.

He added Ninh Thuận had improved the investment and business environment, enhanced provincial competitiveness, and proactively removed difficulties for people and businesses.

As a result, Ninh Thuận has recently been evaluated as one of the leading localities in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, facilitating the formation of large-scale and high-tech enterprises.

Nguyễn Hoàng Sơn, deputy director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Ninh Thuận Province, said: “The province is determined to carry out digital transformation for SMEs to change all aspects of socio-economic activities.”

To turn the goal of being in the group of 15 leading provinces by 2025 into reality, Ninh Thuận needed the development of digital government at the provincial level, said the experts.

According to the province leaders, at that time, the digital economy should account for 20 per cent of GRDP.

They planned by 2030, Ninh Thuận should be among the 10 leading provinces in the country in terms of government development, and the digital economy accounts for 30 per cent of GRDP.

And to achieve the above objectives, leaders of the province considered the enterprise played a decisive and central role. 

A recent survey by the Enterprise Development Department (MPI) said limitations on investment costs, changes in workers' habits and practices and the lack of human resources to implement digital transformation were the main problems.

The MPI has worked with experts from VNPT, Cloudify, Amazon Global Selling, and Freshdi to support businesses in digital transformation in 2021-2025, and shared their opinions, knowledge and practical experience to solve specific business problems.

As an expert in providing comprehensive digital transformation solutions with a set of solutions for transparency of origin, building and protecting business brands, Phan Việt Hoàn, general director of Freshdi, discussed helping businesses improve the value of products and brands, creating a competitive advantage for the unit to expand its business model to the international market.

Hoàn told the local producers, consumers, and distributors of agricultural and food products to seek their help if they were looking for product traceability and professional brand protection solutions.

Apart from applying a technology platform to transparently source and promote and protect agricultural and food brands, MPI's experts also advised and pointed out the direction for businesses to reform operational processes, improve customer experience and find new outlets for products through cross-border e-commerce platforms. — VNS