PPP cooperation helps speed up digital transformation

Hanoi (VNA) – The Public-Private Partnership cooperation is seen as an effective measure to speed up digital transformation and green growth in businesses and localities, said insiders.

The Dien dan doanh nghiep (Business Forum) newspaper cited the success story in digital transformation of the central province of Thua Thien – Hue as an outstanding example of the effective connection between businesses and authorities.

According to the newspaper, Viettel Military Industry and Telecoms Group has built and put into operation a Smart City Operation Center (IOC) in Thua Thien – Hue, contributing to creating a transparent investment, production and business environment to attract local and foreign investors, including technology enterprises.

The cooperation with the locality offers a good opportunity for Viettel to pilot its technological solution, towards commercialising and transferring those solutions to other localities, and gaining profits.

Pavel Poskakukhin, President of the Digital Sector Committee under the European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam (Eurocham), emphasised the importance of PPP in supporting digital transformation, saying that for projects at national and local levels, no single business or administration can invest in technology solutions that bring benefits to the economy by themselves.

According to Poskakukhin, to promote PPP in digital transformation, many countries have decided to transfer some public services to the private sector. However, public services in Vietnam are still managed by authorities.

PPP cooperation to support digital transformation has been effectively implemented among businesses. However, this cooperation form is still not popular between technology enterprises and localities.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the Law on PPP investment took effect on January 1, 2021, but many ministries and localities have yet to implement any PPP projects in technology.

Do Tien Thinh, Vice Director of the National Innovation Centre (NIC) said in recent years, NIC has deployed many activities to support businesses’ digital transformation and realized that businesses are facing difficulties in seeking breakthrough solutions for their digital transformation targets with suitable costs.

Statistics from the MPI show that about 60% of businesses do not have enough budget for digital transformation, he said.

Through NIC, many activities to support businesses in speeding up digitalisation have been performed under the collaboration between the centre and technological firms, focusing on human resources training, and innovation support programmes in factories./.