Promoting innovation and digital transformation to support businesses

At the forum. Photo: MPI

As a pioneer and leading agency to carry out innovation and digital transformation in enterprises, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has cooperated with international organizations such as USAID, UNDP, GIZ, JICA, JETRO and large tech companies in the world to support the development of innovation ecosystem, personnel training and to promote innovation and digital transformation for businesses.

To implement the Party and State’ guidelines and orientations, the MPI has issued the supporting programme for businesses in digital transformation for the period of 2021-2025 in the beginning of 2021, with the goal of 100% of Vietnamese enterprises are well aware of digital transformation, and enterprises becomes successful role models in digital transformation, Deputy Minister Dong said.

The programme has worked with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), ministries, localities, and business associations to effective implementation within 2 years, reaching millions of people to know about the programme. Some positive results of the programme have created motivation and have spread to the community, helping businesses to be confident, move in right direction and save time, cost, effort when doing digital transformation.

The deputy minister stressed several obstacles facing enterprises on their digital path through a survey made by the MPI and the USAID. Particularly, about 60.1 percent of enterprises mentioned high cost technology as a major obstacle to the process, and 52.3 per cent point to an inadequate labour force for the digital technology application.

The deputy minister also highlighted the participation of ministries, localities and joint efforts of businesses, organisations and society to promote innovation and digital information in a substantial and effective manner. The MPI is committed to cooperating with relevant ministries, sectors and businesses in strongly promoting innovation and digital transformation projects.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications (MIC) Nguyen Huy Dung asserted that, policies for digital transformation using digital platforms have been carried out to accelerate digital transformation for SMEs. He also noted that over 500,000 SMEs have begun to take an interest in digital platforms, and 70,000 SMEs have used them.