Speaking at the opening of the conference "Institutions for Science, Technology, Innovation, and Digital Transformation - Unblocking Bottlenecks and Creating Development" held recently, Minister of Science and Technology Vu Hai Quan said that since the Politburo issued Resolution 57, the Ministry of Science and Technology has chaired the drafting and submission to competent authorities to enact 10 laws, 1 National Assembly resolution, 40 decrees, 12 Government resolutions, 70 Prime Minister decisions, and 102 circulars.

This is a massive volume of work, unprecedented within a short period. However, Quan emphasized that formulating new normative legal documents is only the starting point. The greater challenge is ensuring regulations are disseminated and implemented uniformly in practice.

The conference was organized to clarify new points in policy and law while resolving difficulties during implementation.

Digital transformation investment 

At the conference, Le Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of the National Digital Transformation Department, gave a presentation on investment management, procurement, service hiring and special mechanisms for experimental development in digital transformation using state budget capital, presenting six new ways to handle bottlenecks in investment.

Since July 1, 2026, along with the Digital Transformation Law taking effect, Decree 224 and Circulars No39 and 41 of the Ministry of Science and Technology have created a relatively complete legal corridor for these activities.

The new mechanism has six outstanding innovations:

First, digital transformation is identified as an independent budget spending field in the group of science, technology, innovation and digital transformation. The Digital Transformation Law and the State Budget Law stipulate a minimum allocation of 1 percent of total annual state budget expenditure for this field. Decree 224 specifically stipulates tasks and expenditure contents, creating a clear legal basis for allocation and use of resources.

Second, the State will support a maximum of 30 percent of testing costs for enterprises, but not more than 15 billion VND. Previously, enterprises had to pay all testing costs themselves. This is expected to encourage enterprises to boldly research and develop digital solutions.

Third, for national digital platforms and national databases, Decree 224 allows ordering one enterprise to carry out the entire process from research, project formulation, design to implementation to ensure progress and system consistency.

Another notable change is the regulation allowing one enterprise to both design and deploy internal software.

Software development is a continuous process of adjustment according to the actual needs of users. Previous regulations required separating the design unit and the deployment unit, making the implementation process inflexible.

Allowing one enterprise to undertake both stages will help shorten deployment time and improve project efficiency.

In addition, Decree 224 also removes obstacles in determining estimated prices. Previously, investors did not trust enterprise quotations and were afraid to implement. With the new mechanism, enterprises will be responsible for the price, not the investor.

If the investor has fully implemented the collection of quotations according to the principles of publicity and transparency, they will not be responsible if the enterprise declares the price incorrectly or inflates the price.

This regulation helps reduce pressure of responsibility on investors, creating conditions to accelerate the implementation of projects.

Another new point is allowing enterprises develop digital platforms, information systems or software to continue to improve governance, operation and maintenance of that system itself.

According to Tuan, previously the development unit and the maintenance unit were often separated, leading to many difficulties when handling incidents or upgrading the system because the maintenance unit did not grasp the architecture and source code of the software.

The new regulation will ensure continuity, stability and improve system exploitation efficiency.

At the conference, a representative of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said the Prime Minister has assigned the Ministry to coordinate with the Ministry of Science and Technology to complete financial, budget and tax mechanisms to institutionalize Resolution 57, while building remuneration, lump-sum expenditure mechanisms and guiding allocation of funds for digital transformation activities.

He said MOF has supplemented VND25,000 billion to ensure a 3 percent budget spending level for science, technology and innovation, creating development momentum associated with the goal of double-digit growth.

Thai Khang