A wide range of documents is thus employed in this research to examine the enormous impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s e-government construct policies in 2020, but the most im
Trang 1Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Vietnam’s Policies On
E-Government Construction in 2020
Hiển Duy Quảng,1* Nguyễn Mậu Hùng2 1,2University of Sciences, Hue University
*Corresponding author: nguyenmauhung@quangbinh.edu.vn
DOI:
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Keywords:
cyber security, Covid-19
pandemic, policy,
e-government, Vietnam
Although the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on many countries’ national digitalization strategy and efforts of e-government construction, Vietnam has hitherto successfully coped with the global challenge in five periods Although the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to Vietnam is not too big (35 deaths and 1,451 infected on December 28, 2020), it has significantly influenced Vietnam’s e-government construction strategy Due to the increasing demands of social distancing and the practical operation of the state apparatus, Vietnam’s efforts of e-government construction have never been accelerated as strongly as during the Covid-19 pandemic The year 2020 is one of the special times to witness the emergence of many legal documents as well as Vietnam’s most e-government building activities All of these have taken place in the context
of the Covid-19 pandemic This fact shows that the Covid-19 epidemic itself is a lever and catalyst for Vietnam’s national digital transformation and e-government construction strategy In contrast, the achievements in e-government have also contributed substantially to Vietnam’s overall success in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic Vietnam’s e-government ranking has been continuously improved (86/193
in 2020), while the national budget has also been saved considerably (460 billion VND per year)
1 Introduction
The Covid-19 pandemic has been a global challenge and affected the quality of operations of all countries’ government around the world In such a situation, each country’s government has often come up with different responses to both help its country overcome the worst global health crisis within a century and perform its state management function as efficiently as possible Of many solutions proposed to cope with the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, the acceleration of digital transformation and the strengthening of e-government construction have been common solutions often selected by most countries On the one hand, the Covid-19 pandemic has not allowed social interactions to take place on a wide
Trang 2range, large scale, and intensive degree as previously This reality has forced people to increase their use of online transactional solutions to minimize the risk of disease spread On the other hand, many countries’ governments have also found that digital transformation and e-government are not only the most effective tools for social management and governance in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also an inevitable development trend of the era of Industrial Revolution 4.0 The solutions of the Government of Vietnam in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic have not stayed beyond those general rules of human development Although the Covid-19 pandemic entered Vietnam quite early and posed a potential for greater damage because the country’s conditions have still been relatively difficult and the health infrastructure system was still inferior to those of many countries in the world, but it has hitherto been controlled fairly successfully and has not caused serious damage to human life The application of technological achievements in the country governance and prevention of the Covid-19 pandemic has played a vital role in this overall success Specifically, Vietnam’s Ministry of Health and Ministry of Information and Communications are considered to have accelerated the application of information technology and made use of the most inherent advantages of digital infrastructure to contribute to the whole society’s defeat of the Covid-19 pandemic and raised Vietnam’s status in the international arena Of these, typical technology enterprises such as Viettel, VNPT, Bkav have made a lot of crucial contributions (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, September 22) So how has the Covid-19 pandemic made impacts on Vietnam’s policies and efforts to build e-government over the past year? How has Vietnam’s national digitization strategy changed during the Covid-19 pandemic? How should Vietnam’s plan to build e-government be continuously implemented in the highly complicated context of the Covid-19 pandemic in the coming time? Are the objective impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic strong enough to help Vietnam overcome the current transitional digital transformation stage to quickly catch up with the inevitable development trends of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and successfully integrate into the modern world or does Vietnam need a number of other subjective factors to keep on moving faster and further in her national digitization strategy? This issue has been taken into consideration by some Vietnamese authorities and scholars have tried to answer the question in various forms and degrees (Trang tin Chính phủ điện tử, 2020, October 14, 15:51:06 PM), but many academic gaps have not yet been fully filled It is therefore based on the results of analyzing different sources of data by qualitative and quantitative methods as well
as the interdisciplinary and specialized approaches, this paper not only analyzes the objective effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s efforts to build e-government in the year of
2020, but also proposes some solutions to make these processes take place more effectively in the years to come
2 Theoretical basis
Vietnam’s year of 2020 underwent three basic waves of the Covid-19 pandemic in
community, but they can be divided into five phases The first phase began on January 23, 2020,
when the Chợ Rẫy Hospital (Ho Chi Minh City) discovered the first two people infected with Covid-19 in Vietnam Vietnam’s first war against Covid-19 officially began (Bệnh viện Bạch Mai, 2020, May 4) and lasted until the 16th patient on 13 February 2020 (Võ, 2020, February
17, 11:56 AM) The second phase began with the 17th patient officially announced on 6 March,
2020 until Vietnam’s transition to the new normal period on April 24, 2020 (Bệnh viện Bạch
Mai, 2020, May 4) The third stage began with the 416 patients (Mạch, 2020, September 1,
Trang 314:10 PM) which was officially announced on July 25, 2020 (Phan, 2020, September 1, 12:25 PM) until the last patient 936 in Đà Nẵng was cured on 23 September 2020 (Lê, 2020, September
23, 13:07 PM) The fourth phase began with the patient 1342 in Ho Chi Minh City on November
28, 2020 (Cổng thông tin điện tử tỉnh Tuyên Quang, 2020, December 2, 08:30 AM) and ended
by the time the Ho Chi Minh City Center for Disease Control (HCDC) officially removed the blockade and gave up the monitoring of the sites related to the patients in this outbreak on December 16, 2020 (Nguyễn, 2020, December 16, 10:43 AM) However, on December 26,
2020, Vietnam’s Ministry of Health announced a new Covid-19 infection in community due to illegal entry into Vietnam (L.Anh, 2020, December 26, 19:34 PM) Even though Vietnam has suffered a certain number of losses from the Covid-19 pandemic (35 deaths, 1,451 people infected with Covid-19 until 17:56 PM on December 28, 2020 (Bộ Y tế, 2020, December 28, 17:56 PM) and the country’s economic growth rate reduced to less than 2.3%) (Ngọc, 2020, September 10, 15:11 PM), she has hitherto still been considered as one of the most successful Covid-19 pandemic prevention models in the world This success has not only helped overseas Vietnamese to have one more option in difficult circumstances, but also made Vietnam’s e-government construction efforts become more inevitable than ever E-e-government has in practice Vietnam’s target for many years, but the Covid-19 pandemic has made this process take place faster and contributed to the demonstration that Vietnam’s achievements in e-government over the past few years has initially led to positive results and taken effect in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic since the beginning of 2020 It is the historical background and starting point for the research on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s policies on
e-government building in the year of 2020
3 Methodology and methods
E-government development has been a priority of Vietnam for years, but the outbreak
of the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020 has made these efforts become more essential than ever, as online public services are often the first choices and the best options for citizens in the quarantined context, social distancing, and lockdown This issue has been a popular concern of Vietnamese online service users and regularly updated on daily news, but the Government of Vietnam has also paid special attention to the digital transformation of the online public services Nonetheless, the Vietnamese literature on the influences of the coronavirus on Vietnam’s attempts to build e-government is rarely specialized investigations and full reflections of the process in the entire year of 2020 It is more seriously impossible for the majority of them to be counted as scientific works and academic studies on the digitalization
of the Vietnamese administration system in the historical context of the Covid-19 pandemic in
2020 A wide range of documents is thus employed in this research to examine the enormous impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s e-government construct policies in 2020, but
the most important are The draft E-Government Development Strategy towards the Digital
Government for the period of 2021-2025, with a vision to 2030 in the third quarter of 2020 (Văn
phòng Chính phủ, 2020, September 22) as a representative for state policy, Introduction of
National Public Service Portal and its benefits for businesses (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ,
2020, May 22) as an initial success of the central government, and Electronic Government
Architecture of Thừa Thiên Huế province version 2.0 (Trang tin Chính phủ điện tử, 2020, August
26, 07:22:19 AM) as an example of the provincial government attempt to build e-government
in the worrying circumstance of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020
Trang 4The study is realized by a number of general approaches and specific methods Aside from quantitative methods are qualitative ones throughout the paper While pricise figures of quantitative methods are often given to provide evidences for the the arguments in the text, many examined assumptions of stakeholdes are also often used to concretisize related research results and support the author’s conclusions Additionally, interdisciplinary and speciliazed approaches are regularly utilized to discover different angles and the true nature of multi-dimentional effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s strategy to build e-government in
2020 from a wide variety of perspectives Even though a lot of specialized methods can be listed
as the contributors to the completion of this work, the most often used are descriptive and analytical ones The reflections on Vietnam’s efforts to digitalize the administration system are unachievable without the assistance of descriptive techniques Similarly, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s attempts to provide online public services to the whole population as soon as possible cannot be easily seen with the absence of analytical skills Nevertheless, only comparative tools could differentiate the development of e-government in the challenging background of 2020 and that of previous ones As the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s policies on e-government construction in 2020 is a past story, historial methods are therefore also vital ways to restore the picture of the last year However, historical techniques are not merely used to investigate the events of the past as what is often done in historical research, but they are also combined with logic way of thinking to arrange all the statistics and analytical products in a chronological order It means many scientific methods are applied for this study, but the most usually visible are historical, logical, analytical, descriptive, and comparative ones
4 Result and discussion: Some effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Vietnam’s policy of building e-government
4.1 The construction of a legal corridor for e-government and national digital transformation
Since the Internet was just introduced into Vietnam and is not used as commonly as at the present, the Government of Vietnam has determined the application of information technology achievements in the activities of the state apparatus is one of the important driving forces contributing to the country’s renewal process to achieve more solid achievements and the
successful realization of the industrialization and modernization of the country (Mai, 2020) As
the Industrial Revolution 4.0 has begun to creep into every corner of life in recent years, Vietnam has considered digital government, digital society, and digital economy as the most prioritized areas for investment to prepare firm foundations for the comprehensive digitalization of the country (TTXVN, 2019, April 14) in the coming decades However, the Covid-19 pandemic has been a real boost to Vietnam’s efforts to build e-government over the past few months The Covid-19 pandemic has changed people’s consumption behavior, modes of exchange, and commercial activities On such a basis, Vietnam’s e-commerce activities have grown strongly
in recent months Online purchasing activities to serve the daily needs of Vietnamese people increased by 25% during the Covid-19 pandemic That means the national digital transformation usually takes around 5 years to be widely applicable to business activities of enterprises and consuming behavior of the people, but the kick of the Covid-19 pandemic made this process only takes about 8 weeks (Tạp chí GTVT, 2020, August 3, 10:43 AM) This fact has a profound impact on Vietnam’s national digitalization strategy and e-government building efforts in 2020
Trang 5Although Vietnam passed the Law on Electronic Transactions 2005 (Quốc hội, 2005, November 29), the Law on Information Technology 2006 (Vũ, 2020, June 5), the Law on Cyber Information Security 2015 (Quốc hội, 2015, December 28), and the Law on Cyber Security
2018 (Quốc hội, 2018, June 12), the period since the Covid-19 pandemic visited Vietnam has really witnessed the emergence of many legal documents in the field of e-government On January 1, 2020, the Government of Vietnam asked the state apparatus to accelerate the processing of working documents in the electronic environment to ensure the completion of the targets set out under the Resolution No: 01/NQ-CP (Chính phủ, 2020, January 1) On January
22, 2020, the Government Office announced Official Letter No 598 / VPCP-KSTT guiding the
construction and connection of the reporting information system of ministries, branches and localities to the Government’s Reporting Information System (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020,
January 22) On February 12, 2020, the Online Conference of the National E-Government Committee with the E-Government Construction Steering Committees identified 2020 as the year of special significance in the efforts to build e-government in Vietnam (Chí, 2020, April
6) This is the first year of implementation of the Resolution No: 52-NQ/TW on a number of
guidelines and policies to actively participate in the fourth industrial revolution of the Politburo
on September 27, 2019 (Bộ Chính trị, 2019, September 27) and the last year of the implementation process of the Prime Minister’s Resolution No 17/NQ-CP on a number of key tasks and solutions for e-government development in the period of 2019-2020, with a vision to
2025 on March 7, 2019 (Chính phủ, 2019, March 7)
On February 24, 2020, the Government of Vietnam issued the Decision No
293/QĐ-TTg promulgating a set of indicators that synthesize periodic reports and socio-economic statistical reports to serve the direction and administration of the Government, the Prime Minister (Thủ tướng Chính phủ ký, 2020, Feburary 24) The Government Office was tasked
with the completion of the Government Reporting Information System before June 30, 2020 (Chí, 2020, May 24) The Ministry of Information and Communications (the standing agency for e-government construction) was appointed to coordinate with the Government Office and related parties to develop an e-Government Monitoring and Evaluation System and to amend the Government’s Decree No 43/2011/NĐ-CP on June 13, 2011 before December 31, 2020
(Chí, 2020, May 24) On March 4, 2020, the Government of Vietnam issued the Directive No
11/CT-TTg on urgent tasks and solutions to overcome difficulties for production and business, and ensure social security to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2020,
March 4) On March 5, 2020, the Government issued the Decree No 30/2020/NĐ-CP (Chính phủ, 2020, March 5) on clerical work, integration on word management and administration software (on desktop PCs and on mobile devices) of ministries, branches and localities in service
of sending and receiving electronic documents and handling tasks in the cyber environment (Chí, 2020, May 2)
On March 11, 2020, the Prime Minister issued the Decision No: 366/QĐ-TTg approving
the adjusted investment policy of the national database project on population (Thủ tướng Chính
phủ, 2020, March 11) In order to implement the Directive No 13/CT-TTg on continuing to
promote the prevention and control of the Covid-19 pandemic in the new situation on March
11, 2020 (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2020, March 11), the Prime Minister asked the government system to simplify all the unnecessary administrative procedures and minimize unreasonable costs for the people and businesses The Ministry of Public Security was asked to urgently
Trang 6complete the construction of the National Population Database before June 30, 2020 (Chí, 2020, May 24) according to the Decision No 366/QĐ-TTg on March 11, 2020 (Thủ tướng Chính phủ,
2020, March 11) On March 23, 2020, the Government Office issued the Notice No
119/TB-VPCP on the Prime Minister’s directing opinion on the development of online public service system (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, March 23)
On March 23, 2020, the National Committee on E-Government issued the Decision No:
194/QĐ-UBQGCPĐT on promulgating the operation plan of the National E-Government
Committee in 2020 (Ủy ban Quốc gia về Chính phủ điện tử, 2020, March 23) According to this
plan, members of the Committee completed their comments on 1) a draft decision of the Prime Minister promulgating regulations on the use of equipment and machinery for e-Government information systems for assuring cyber information security in the second quarter of 2020, 2) draft decree regulating the National Database on Insurance in the third quarter of 2020, 3) Scheme on ensuring cyber security in the construction and development of e-government in
2020 (Chí, 2020, March 25) On March 24, 2020, the Government issued the Decision No
411/QĐ-TTg approving the list of integrated public services to be provided on the National Public Service Portal in 2020 (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2020, March 24) Of these, 65 public
services were prioritized for integration and provision on the National Public Service Portal by
2020 (Chí, 2020, March 25)
On April 3, 2020, the Ministry of Information and Communications issued the Official
Letter No 1145/BTTTT-CATTT on Guiding the set of technical criteria and indicators to evaluate and choose cloud computing solutions to serve e-Government (Bộ Thông tin và Truyền
thông, 2020, April 3) On April 8, 2020, the Government of Vietnam issued the Decree No
45/2020/NĐ-CP on the implementation of administrative procedures in the electronic environment (Chính phủ, 2020, April 8) According to this Decree, the Government Cipher
Committee is required to issue 100% of digital certificates to state administrative agencies before June 30, 2020 to serve the sending and receiving of electronic documents and the management of related work in the cyber environment at the request of state agencies (Chí,
2020, May 2) On April 9, 2020, the Government issued the Decree No: 47/2020/ND-CP on the
management, connection and sharing of digital data of state agencies (Chính phủ, 2020, April
9)
On May 12, 2020, the Government announced the Resolution No: 68/NQ-CP
promulgating a program to reduce and simplify regulations related to business activities in the period of 2020-2025 (Chính phủ, 2020, May 12) On May 19, 2020, the Ministry of Natural
Resources and Environment signed the Decision No 1123/QĐ-BTNMT (Bộ Tài nguyên và Môi trường, 2020, May 19) promulgating the Plan of the Ministry of Natural Resources and
Environment to implement the Decree No 45/2020/ND-CP on August 8, 2020 of the Government on the implementation of administrative procedures in the electronic environment
(Cổng TTĐT, 2020, May 19) to ensure the timely, uniformed, scientific and effective implementation of the contents identified in the Decree 45 (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ,
2020, May 26 tháng 5) According to this plan, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment strives to provide at least 50% of online public services at level 4 in 2020 (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ, 2020, May 26 tháng 5) On May 29, 2020, the Government of
Vietnam issued the Resolution No: 84 / NQ-CP on tasks and solutions to continue solving
difficulties for production and business, promoting disbursement of public investment capital
Trang 7and ensuring social order and safety in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic (Chính phủ, 2020,
May 29) After that, the Government Office issued a document urging related parties to implement a number of tasks and solutions that were assigned in the Government’s Resolution No: 84/NQ-CP (Vũ, 2020, June 19)
On June 3, 2020, the Prime Minister issued the Decision No: 749/QĐ-TTg approving
the “National Digital Transformation Program to 2025, with a vision to 2030 (Thủ tướng Chính
phủ, 2020, June 3) According to this Resolution, by 2030, Vietnam’s public administration has basically been completely digitized (Vũ, 2020, June 5) On June 26, 2020, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs issued the Guidance No: 2148/BNG-LS on the use of online public services and
public postal services in resolving administrative procedures in the consular field (Bộ Ngoại
giao, 2020, June 26) On July 1, 2020, the Government of Vietnam issued the Decree No
77/2020/NĐ-CP regulating the management and exploitation of information in the national database on immigration; online public service serving the issuance, management and control
of passports of Vietnamese citizens; immigration control by automatic control gate (Chính phủ,
2020, July 1) On July 22, 2020, the Prime Minister issued the Decision No 20/2020/QĐ-TTg
on electronic identifiers of agencies and organizations serving data connection and sharing with ministries, branches, localities (Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2020, July 22)
On July 28, 2020, the Government of Vietnam issued the Decree regulating the
electronic civil status database and online civil status registration (Chính phủ, 2020, July 28)
On August 14, 2020, the Government issued the Decree No 91/2020/NĐ-CP on the fight
against spam messages, spam emails, and spam calls (Chính phủ, 2020, August 14) On
September 22, 2020, the Government Office issued the Notice No 339/TB-VPCP on the
Conclusion of Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc at the online meeting of the National Committee on E-Government with the Steering Committee to build e-government of ministries, branches, and localities on August 26, 2020 (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, September 22) The
Government Office was tasked to coordinate with the Ministry of Information and
Communications to complete the Decree on identification and electronic authentication in the
third quarter of 2020 (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, September 22) The Ministry of Information
and Communications was tasked with completing the draft E-Government Development
Strategy towards the Digital Government for the period of 2021-2025, with a vision to 2030 in the third quarter of 2020 (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, September 22)
The resolution of the Government’s regular meeting in September 2020 on e-Government development required the entire state apparatus to complete the construction of a platform for integrating and sharing data at the ministerial and provincial level in October 2020
to connect to the National Data Sharing and Integration Platform, provide at least 30% of online public services at level 3, 4 under jurisdiction to the National Public Service Portal before November 30, 2020, urgently provide online public services at level 4 at least 30% in 2020 (Trang tin Chính phủ điện tử, 2020, October 13, 09:31:56 AM) On October 8, 2020, the Prime
Minister issued the Decision No 1532/QĐ-TTg approving the task of planning information and
communication infrastructure for the period of 2021 - 2030 with a vision to 2050 (Thủ tướng
Chính phủ, 2020, October 8)
In summary, although the Internet was not introduced into Vietnam first in Asia, the Government of Vietnam has considered this as one of the strategic directions of the country in the future and e-government is not only a mode of national governance, but also one of the
Trang 8central parts of the national digitalization strategy since the beginning Based on such strategies, the Government of Vietnam has issued a lot of lawful documents to build a legal corridor for the establishment and development of e-government in Vietnam This process began in the first years of the twenty-first century and has continued to grow more strongly in the following years, but the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has really opened a new chapter The national digitalization strategy and e-government building policy had never been paid more attention and practical they have been in the past few months No single sector in Vietnam has witnessed the emergence of more legal documents than digital transformation and e-government since the Covid-19 pandemic at the beginning of 2020 After less than 2 months of operating the National Public Service Portal on December 9, 2019 to February 9, 2020, the Prime Minister issued 4 legal documents and the Government Office announced 7 urgent documents and two examining documents on the implementation of the e-government project in the whole country (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, February 10) Thanks to these efforts, a legal corridor for the application of information technology and e-government development has gradually been established in
Vietnam (Mai, 2020)
4.2 Some results achieved in practice
The issuance of legal documents and the construction of legal corridors for national digital transformation and e-government building are extremely important, but its implementation in practice is even more essential In this regard, the achievements of national digital transformation and the application of online public services have proven their practical use and effectiveness in real life in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, especially during the period of implementation of the social distancing
On February 10, 2020, the Government Office announced the Report No: 993/BC-VPCP
on some results of implementing the tasks of administrative reform associated with e-government development under the management and implementation of the Government Office
in 2019 (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, February 10) According to this report, Vietnam cut 3,451
out of 6,191 business conditions in nearly all sectors, 6,776 out of 9,926 categories of products subject to specialized inspection, and 30 out of 120 administrative proceedings related to specialized examination (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, February 10) 9/22 ministries, agencies, and 63/63 provinces and cities have been connected and integrated with the National Public Service Portal (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, February 10)
From the time it was officially opened on March 12, 2019 to February 10, 2020, 95/952 ministries, branches, localities (100%) and the Party Central Office handled more than 1.26 million electronic documents on the national electronic document axis (Văn phòng Chính phủ,
2020, February 10) At the same time, e-cabinet and paperless government is in the right direction From the opening of June 24, 2019 to February 9, 2020, Vietnam’s e-cabinet system served 12 government’s conferences and meetings All of these operations used electronic documents and replaced 42,276 paper documents 229 questionnaires for government members were also conducted online and eliminated 6,183 paper votes and 28,161 paper documents attached (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, February 10)
In the implementation of the Official Dispatch No 598/VPCP-KSTT on guiding the
construction and connection of the reporting information system of ministries, branches and localities with the Government Reporting Information System on January 22, 2020 (Văn phòng
Chính phủ, 2020, January 22), the Government Office held an online conference on the
Trang 9implementation of the National Reporting Information System and issued a guiding document
to build and connect the Nationwide Reporting Information System (Văn phòng Chính phủ,
2020, February 10) The Government Reporting Information System has integrated 19 reporting ways of 10 ministries and ministerial-level agencies If the whole system of automatic synthesis
is electronicized, the public administration could save more than 4,700 workdays and around
460 billion VND for the state budget each year (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ, 2020, March 16) If all public services are provided online, Vietnam will annually save about 6,490 billion VND for total social costs Of these, the National Public Service Portal contributes 3,036 billion VND per year (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ, 2020, May 22)
At the same time, the National Reporting Information System is also increasingly improved The Government Office has developed the Government Reporting Information System software and is working with the Vietnam Initiative to perfect the advanced features of the Economic-Social Indicator Volatility Visual Display In addition, the model of information center serving national governance is also in the completion of basic features (Văn phòng Chính phủ, 2020, February 10) On March 13, 2020, the Government Office collaborated with ministries, agencies, and localities to introduce 169 online public services at level 3 and 4 to the National Public Service Portal Currently, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, and 58 localities have added 11 online public services more to the National Public Service Portal Over 13 thousand online profiles have been created on the National Public Service Portal (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ, 2020, March 16)
Since May 12, 2020, the National Public Service Portal has provided six additional public services to help citizens and businesses overcome the difficulties during the Covid-19 pandemic Among these, the top prioritized is 1) the support to employees whose labor contracts have been postpone and have taken unpaid leave, 2) the support to employers who borrow money to pay employees’ stop-off wages, 3) the support to the extension of payment of corporate tax, 4) the support to the extension of payment of personal taxes, 5) the support to the suspension of payment to the death pension fund, 6) the support to receive and handle complaints and recommendations in helping difficult people and businesses due to the
Covid-19 pandemic A number of special public services have also been introduced on the National Public Service Portal to assist citizens and businesses during and after the Covid-19 pandemic (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ, 2020, May 22)
On the morning of May 19, 2020, the Prime Minister’s Administrative Procedure
Reform Advisory Council held an online conference on the Introduction of National Public
Service Portal and its benefits for businesses The Government of Vietnam has drastically
changed the state management and public service provision of the administrative apparatus to adapt to the new context of the Covid-19 pandemic The National Public Service Portal has provided 406 online public services Of these, 235 are online public services for businesses (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ, 2020, May 22) On May 26, 2020, the Prime Minister issued
the Decision No 701/QĐ-TTg on the Strengthening the National Committee on E-Government
(Thủ tướng Chính phủ, 2020, May 26)
Since June 2020, 20/22 ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and most local governments in Vietnam have gradually standardized their ways of periodic report The number
of digitized administrative procedures has been significantly reduced (Cổng thông tin điện tử
Trang 10chính phủ, 2020, June 11) On the morning of June 30, 2020, the Ministry of Health officially announced the completion of the 100% provision of online public services (321 administrative procedures) at level 4 The success of the Ministry of Health not only happened earlier than 5 years compared with the previously set roadmap within 6 months, but has also become the first ministry to complete the provision of 100% of online public services at level 4 In the first half
of 2020, the Ministry of Health The company has successfully solved 33,429 online records (Đình, 2020, June 30) The health sector has established over 90 million electronic health profiles and is updating health information of each individual citizen on its electronic information system According to the plan, by December 31, 2020, all paper medical examination books must be replaced by the electronic form It is also on December 31, 2020, all databases and resources of the health sector must be fully updated on its electronic information portal to build a more efficient health-care sector (Đình, 2020, June 30)
Implementing the Government’s Resolution No 36a/NQ-CP on October 14, 2015 (Chính phủ, 2015, Occtober 14), the Ministry of Finance has continued to expand the application
of information technology and the electronicization of administrative procedures in the first half
of 2020 After more than 4 years of providing online public services, nearly 2 million electronic documents have been stored and managed on the Document Management and Operation program (eDocTC) of this ministry and connected with the National document linkage axis At present, more than 95 agencies and units of the Ministry of Finance have received nearly 40,000 documents and have sent more than 12,000 documents on the National document linkage axis
By the end of June 2020, 560 out of a total of 951 administrative procedures under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance (59%) have been carried out online at level 3 and 4 Of these, 351 online public services have been performed at level 4 (37%) This figure has exceeded the target of the Government’s Resolution 17/NQ-CP in 2019 on e-Government development more than 30% The Ministry of Health is aiming to provide 634 online public services (67%)
at level 3 and level 4 in 2020 (TA, 2020, July 9)
Since June 2020, all local governments and tax departments have used electronic tax system Around 780,000 businesses (99.4%) have used electronic tax services Nearly 8 million electronic tax profiles were received from the beginning of the year to June 19, 2020 Electronic tax payment has been linked to 55 commercial banks and 63 tax departments About 770,000 businesses (98.9%) have registered to use electronic tax payment services From the beginning
of the year to June 19, 2020, businesses made nearly 1.8 million electronic tax payment transactions More than 8,000 electronic profiles have been processed electronically The Ministry of Finance has brought 198 administrative procedures on the national one-stop mechanism with the participation of 13 ministries and over 38,700 enterprises Approximately 3,104 million electronic records have been processed on the National one-stop portal (TA, 2020, July 9) On the morning of August 26, 2020, the Ministry of Finance officially launched the State Budget Public Portal (https://ckns.mof.gov.vn/) (Trang tin Chính phủ điện tử, 2020, August 27, 07:47:36 AM)
Since July 1, 2020, the authentication service of electronic copy has been launched on the National Public Service Portal This step is considered as a breakthrough in Vietnam’s construction of e-Government If around 30% of more than 102 million notarized copies in 2019 could be reused more than once, it would save VND 428.4 billion for the society each year (Cổng thông tin điện tử chính phủ, 2020, June 4) On August 17, 2020, the Ministry of Public