The central city of Da Nang topped the Digital Transformation Index (DTI) rankings in 2020 for localities nationwide in all three key pillars of digital government, digital economy and digital society, according to the DTI 2020 Report released several days ago by the Ministry of Information and Communications.

The DTI rankings were made based on four major sources - data from reports of ministries, ministry-level agencies, Government-run agencies and centrally-run cities and provinces in 2020; data collected from people, entrepreneurs, State officials and public servants; experts’ assessments on digital transformation and information technology; and evaluation collected through the Internet under the supervision of the Ministry of Information and Communications.

The rankings aim to provide a panoramic picture on the digital transformation situation in Vietnam in 2020, helping ministries, agencies and localities design solutions to promote digital transformation in the time to come.

The result is a recognition of the relentless efforts of Da Nang authorities in implementing a social-economic development strategy based on the breakthrough development of information and communication technology.

Early performance of digital transformation

Since 2010, Da Nang has identified information and communication technology as one of the three strategic breakthroughs in socio-economic development.

The city has issued important guidelines and policies as the foundation to promote IT application, build e-government, and smart city and initially implement digital transformation.

In 2014, Da Nang approved the "Project to build a smarter city", in collaboration with leading information technology enterprises to deploy smart applications in a number of specialized fields.

In 2018, overall smart city architecture has focused on 6 main pillars, including smart governance; smart economy; intelligent environment; smart life; smart traffic; and smart citizens.

The city also established the Da Nang Digital Transformation Advisory Council to advise local authorities on strategies, plans, investments, technology, markets, finance, human resources and development trends to implement digital transformation.

According to Deputy Director of the Da Nang Department of Information and Communications Tran Ngoc Thach, to succeed in digital transformation, the most important thing is political determination and commitment of the city's leaders.

Da Nang has deployed applications based on the needs of people and businesses. The city receives requests from people and businesses via call center 1022, zalo 1022, and the website https://dx.danang.gov.vn. It takes the DTI index of the Ministry of Information and Communications as the core and measure for implementation and evaluation of digital transformation of local agencies.

"Da Nang has identified digital transformation as an inevitable, mandatory step, an urgent and long-term task," Thach said.

The Politburo's Resolution 43 on the construction and development of Da Nang to 2030, with a vision to 2045, also identifies five priority areas for development, including digital transformation, development of information and communication technology, electronics associated with the digital economy. The remaining fields also need digital transformation platforms.

The Da Nang Party Committee also determined that one of the three key and breakthrough tasks is to strongly innovate the growth model and restructure the economy, with a focus on strongly developing high-tech industry and information technology, associated with the construction of innovative start-up cities, smart city, and creating a foundation to promote the development of new fields, especially digital economy, digital society and digital government.

Dramatic changes from digital transformation

With drastic changes over the past time, Da Nang has applied many digital transformation products such as: digital data to replace papers in granting household registration, business registration certificates, public services, the app Covid-19 epidemiological map, QR Code, and the multi-service application "Danang smart city".

Da Nang has ranked first for 12 consecutive years for the ICT index, and has won the Asia and Oceania Smart City Award 2019 and the Vietnam Smart City 2020 Award.

The city has developed a portal to provide data and publicize information to people and businesses; and established a monitoring center with 200 smart traffic cameras, 1,800 specialized security cameras, and 34,500 surveillance cameras mobilized from people and businesses.

In Da Nang, 100% of medical facilities have implemented electronic medical applications on a common platform. Up to 98% of local people and businesses are satisfied when using applications and utilities on a digital environment.

In addition, the city has offered 75% of online public services at level 4, and 100% of documents exchanged among state agencies are in electronic form. In terms of digital economy, the total revenue of the local information and communication sector reached more than VND30,000 trillion last year, accounting for 7.5% of the city's GRDP.

Regarding the digital society, 92% of local households have access to broadband Internet, 91% of people use smartphones, and 180,000 electronic accounts of local citizens and businesses use online services of the local government. In the city, more than 40,000 people work in the field of information technology.

Da Nang Party Secretary Nguyen Van Quang emphasized that the implementation of digital transformation in Da Nang not only contributes to the country's digital transformation, but is one of the "main solutions" to build and develop the city according to Resolution 43.

“Da Nang has determined that digital transformation must take people and businesses as the center. Renewing thinking, raising awareness, comprehensively applying digital technology in life, production, business and duty performance are the core. Developing digital government is the driving force and leads the development of the digital economy and digital society,” he said.

Digital transformation helps to solve the bottlenecks in the city's development, contributing to achieving the goal of building Da Nang as a smart city, connected with urban networks in the country and ASEAN by 2030, he added.

According to the Resolution of the Da Nang Party Committee on digital transformation in 2025, with a vision to 2030, Da Nang aims to be in the group of three leading localities in digital transformation and in information security and e-commerce by 2025.

In particular, it targets 100% online public administrative services at level 4, 60% of public administrative services at level 3,4, provided on various platforms, and 100% of state agencies providing open data…

Other goals include: digital economy accounting for at least 20% of the city's GRDP; the proportion of the digital economy in each industry or field at least 10%; annual labor productivity increase by at least 7%; 1,000 open public data sets for the use of local organizations, citizens, businesses...

In the field of tourism, the proportion of digital economy will account for 20% of the added value of the field; 100% of museums, cultural and tourist attractions will provide virtual travel services and online payment; tourists will be consulted and supported before visiting, during their visit and after leaving Da Nang through digital platforms.

The city will strive to complete the construction of a smart city connected with smart urban networks in the country and Southeast Asia.

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