More administrative procedures to go online: Minister

The Government of Vietnam wants the business community to provide feedback and input to help improve the National Public Service Portal, heard a conference held by the Prime Minister’s Council on Administrative Reform and the World Bank in Hanoi on May 19.
More administrative procedures to go online: Minister ảnh 1A screenshot of the National Public Service Portal (File Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) - TheGovernment of Vietnam wants the business community to provide feedback andinput to help improve the National Public Service Portal, heard a conferenceheld by the Prime Minister’s Council on Administrative Reform and the WorldBank in Hanoi on May 19.

To cope with COVID-19 pandemic,the Government has been pushing more administrative procedures online,including the use of e-documents and e-reports, and the establishment ofinformation and public service portals on local levels, said Minister-Chairman ofthe Government Office Mai Tien Dung.

The Government’s Decision45/2020/ND-CP also dictated, for the first time, that online procedures berecognised by governmental agencies to reduce red tape, paperwork forbusinesses and to promote online transactions as well as the digital economy.

“Since its formation, theNational Public Service Portal has proven to be an effective tool in thecountry’s scheme to digitalise administrative procedures. In addition, theportal also helps improve the transparency and accountability of localgovernments,” said Dung.

The portal has developed fromjust eight groups of public services, to provide nearly 400 services with morethan half designed to meet the needs of businesses. The portal allows firms toopen service tickets with ministries, agencies and local authorities.

Citizens and businesses cantrack how their applications are being processed and at the same time, theOffice of the Government can keep an eye on the proceedings and when required,send feedback and instructions.

Speaking at the conference, theWorld Bank’s Country Director for Vietnam Ousmane Dione said the COVID-19pandemic had brought unprecedented disruption to social and economicdevelopment on a global scale. He called for the Government and businesscommunity to work together to fight the crisis.

Along with effective publichealth measures taken by the Government, the country’s swift digitalisation ofpublic services was a highlight of its ability to deal with the pandemic.

Dione said the portal wasof tremendous value in stopping the spread of the coronavirus and in protectingthe health of citizens and public servants.  

He called for actions to betaken by the private sector to hasten business digitalisation to improvebusiness resilience and ensure operations can run uninterrupted. As made clearby the pandemic, businesses with a high level of digitalisation haveproven much less likely to be affected while others suffered disastrousconsequences or were put out of operations.

In addition, applications ofdigitalisation, e-commerce, big data and Artificial Intelligence may boostproductivity and add value for small-to-medium-sized enterprises by up to 26 percent,he said, citing a 2019 study conducted in Singapore. On a regional scale,digitalisation has the potential to create 1.1 trillion VND in GDP valuefor ASEAN economies by 2025.

Dione also called for theGovernment to continue with administrative reforms to cut costs and timefor businesses. To this end, data gathered by the portal may provide anexcellent starting point for the Government to identify time-wasting proceduresand bottlenecks in the system.

The national public serviceportal debuted on December 9, 2019, and has logged more than 140,000 registeredaccounts, 35 million visits, 7.3 million documents and processed more than68,000 documents.

It is estimated as much as 6.49 trillionVND (280 million USD) has been saved thanks to online public services a year,which includes 3.036 trillion VND from the portal. 

According to the report of theGovernment Office, after six months in operation, the portal has supplied 389online public services (160 for people and 229 for enterprises) in salespromotion, electricity supply, payment of taxes, charges and fees, electronictax declaration and payment and tax extension request.

Starting from May 12, theportal has started additional services to support citizens and businessesaffected by COVID-19 including workers who have lost their jobs or had theirsalaries suspended, employers who have borrowed to compensate laid-off workers,applications to delay payments of personal and business income./.
VNA

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