Vietnam Faces 'Three Paradoxes' in Digital Transformation Push, General Secretary Urges Stronger Implementation

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam has announced the conclusions of a specialized meeting on the progress of digital transformation (DX) within the political system. Chaired by General Secretary and President Tô Lâm, the meeting acknowledged significant progress in promoting DX, while also highlighting "three major paradoxes" that need to be overcome. According to the meeting's conclusions, the DX drive has seen advancements across various fields over the past year, including improved awareness, refinement of legal frameworks, and the establishment of key digital platforms and databases. The practical implementation of electronic document exchange, online meetings, public service delivery, and citizen database utilization has contributed to the smooth operation of the political system. However, despite these achievements, many challenges and bottlenecks remain. Specifically, three paradoxes were identified as problematic: First, the inefficient utilization of resources allocated for DX. The disbursement rate is low at 12.2%, significantly below the overall disbursement rate for public investment. Many local authorities and lower-level units lack terminal equipment, technical infrastructure, and resources for data cleansing and standardization, yet allocated funds are not being effectively utilized. Second, despite the investment in numerous systems, platforms, and databases, the level of interconnection, sharing, and data utilization does not match the investment and management requirements. Data has not truly become a strategic resource for national governance, digital economy development, or improving services for citizens and businesses. Particularly at the local level, systems, software, and data are fragmented and lack interconnection, forcing officials to operate multiple systems simultaneously. This increases workload pressure and affects service quality for citizens and businesses. Third, despite strong political resolve, the implementation results in many areas are inadequate, remaining superficial and reactive, lacking substantive change. Under similar institutional and policy conditions, some agencies and localities achieve good results, while others continue to lag, primarily citing difficulties and obstacles. These paradoxes indicate that the biggest bottleneck is no longer in awareness, policy, or resource allocation, but in the capacity for implementation and the ultimate accountability of each agency, especially its leadership. Therefore, in the coming period, strict enforcement discipline, clear definition of responsibilities, and performance evaluation based on output are required, along with emphasizing the responsibility of leaders. Regarding future tasks, the meeting decided to focus on tasks to be completed within 100 days and those aimed at creating breakthroughs. Emphasis will be placed on resolving overdue tasks, outstanding documents, and bottlenecks identified at the meeting. Each lead agency must review its tasks, clearly define responsibilities, deliverables, and deadlines, and be ultimately accountable for progress and quality, preventing delays from extending over months or quarters. Results must be quantified with specific indicators and serve as a basis for evaluating the performance of collectives and individuals, especially leaders. Furthermore, accelerating the development of data and shared platforms is considered crucial. Data is positioned as a strategic resource and the foundation of DX, expected to be created, managed, connected, shared, and utilized effectively according to the principle of "accurate, sufficient, clean, live, unified, shared." This is intended to create practical value for the operations of agencies, organizations, citizens, and businesses, contribute to the development of the data market, and boost economic growth. Source: Nhan Dan