The Ministry of Information and Communications' IT Application Department said the department will urge state offices at the central and local levels to apply IT to their operations in 2013.

The move is part of the national programme on IT application for state agencies by 2015.

According to the plan on promotion of IT using in state offices, people's committees of cities and provinces managed directly by the central government must implement electronic records, management of electronic information, security of information and training of IT staff, the department said.

State offices must build a roadmap to send electronic records with paper records to all other state offices. This is aimed to reach the goal of 60 percent of official documents exchanged electronically at State offices by 2015.

They must promote e-mail and information systems to send or receive administrative documents between state offices and other offices.

They must complete or improve their electronic information sites to have 80 percent of state management offices, from department level to beyond, operating websites.

They have to ensure information security for their electronic information systems. They would also have to authenticate digital signatures for the safety of e-mail and e-document exchange.

Additionally, state offices at the central level must build information systems for specific sectors, including a list of online public services and projects for the sector.-VNA