Vietnam's digital economy is the fastest growing in Southeast Asia

Vietnam's digital economy is growing at the fastest rate in Southeast Asia for two consecutive years, 2022 and 2023, according to information presented at the National Committee on Digital Transformation's meeting on the afternoon of December 28th.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the session. Photo: Duong Giang/TTXVN

On the afternoon of December 28, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Chairman of the National Committee on Digital Transformation, chaired the 7th meeting of the Committee, summarizing activities in 2023 and outlining key directions and tasks for 2024.

Assessing the outstanding results of national digital transformation in 2023, the Ministry of Information and Communications stated that the National Digital Transformation Program, the National Strategy for the Development of Digital Government, Digital Economy, and Digital Society, set 62 targets.

Of these, 18 targets have been completed (29%), 27 targets are highly likely to be completed (43.5%), and 17 targets require focused effort to be completed on time (27.5%). The 2023 plan set out 126 tasks, of which 102 have been completed, achieving a completion rate of 81%.

In 2023, the World Intellectual Property Organization ranked Vietnam's Innovation Index at 46th place, an increase of 2 positions compared to 2022, consistently maintaining its position in the top 50 countries from 2018 to the present.

Vietnam's national digital transformation index increased by 48% from 0.48 to 0.71 between 2020 and 2022. In 2023, this index is projected to reach 0.75.

A Google report assessed Vietnam's digital economy growth rate as the fastest in Southeast Asia for two consecutive years (28% in 2022 and 19% in 2023), 3.5 times higher than the GDP growth rate. The Ministry of Information and Communications estimates that the digital economy's share of Vietnam's GDP will reach 16.5% in 2023. Vietnam's digital economy growth rate is estimated at around 20% per year, three times the GDP growth rate.

The Ministry of Information and Communications has chosen 2023 as the year to support Vietnamese digital technology businesses in expanding internationally.

In 2023, Vietnam had more than 1,500 Vietnamese digital technology businesses generating revenue from overseas markets, an increase of over 7% compared to 2022.

Total revenue from overseas markets is estimated at $7.5 billion, a 4% increase compared to 2022. Revenue from concentrated IT parks is approximately $15 million/hectare/year, about 15 times higher than the revenue of industrial parks.

Vietnam has been among the top 10 countries in terms of new mobile app downloads for two consecutive years (2022, 2023). The number of users on Vietnamese digital platforms increased by 46% compared to 2022. Three government-run applications with a large user base are VneID from the Ministry of Public Security, VssID from the Social Insurance agency, and Vietnam Youth from the Central Committee of the Vietnam Youth Union.

By the end of 2023, ministries and branches had cut and simplified nearly 2,500 business regulations and simplified 528/1,086 administrative procedures related to citizens. Connecting and sharing data brought specific results, solving inter-sectoral problems that were previously very difficult to solve thoroughly.

Typically, connecting and sharing population and insurance data makes it easier for people to access medical care; they only need to provide their citizen identification card, and the process is streamlined from four steps to two. The time for each verification is reduced from 10 minutes to just 6-13 seconds.

Connecting and sharing data simplifies the business registration process, consolidating four procedures—business registration, social insurance registration, labor declaration, and invoice registration—into a single process, shortening the processing time from 16 days to a maximum of 6 days.

Administrative procedures in some localities have seen groundbreaking changes. For example, in June 2023, Quang Ninh province issued investment certificates for two business investment projects with a total investment capital of nearly 250 million USD in just 12 working hours from the time investors submitted their applications online through the province's public service portal, shortening the processing time by 14 working days compared to regulations.

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