On December 20, the National Digital Transformation Agency (NDTA) under the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) in collaboration with the Vietnam Digital Media Association held a conference to review the 2023 national digital data year and Datafest 2023.

NDTA’s deputy head Nguyen Phu Tien said data cannot be built overnight, but needs time. The national digital data year 2023 is the period for "germinating" the data development process. 

“Encouraging outcomes have been created in the last year, creating public confidence in the next bountiful crops,” Tien said.

Of the outcomes, NDTA emphasized the considerable improvement in the databases at state agencies.

A legal framework, with standards on data, regulations on the organization, building, management, operation, exploitation and use of data, and compatible with the world’s standards, has been set.

Important national databases that create the foundation for digital transformation such as a population database, business registration, insurance, electronic civil status, and civil servants have been put into use. The data are shared among agencies on a national scale.

The proportion of ministries and provinces that have identified database lists has reached 63 percent. The number of specialized databases in ministries, branches and localities has increased by 38.5 percent compared with 2022, from 1,280 to 2,077 databases. The announcement of plans and open data catalogs rose sharply from 9 percent to 50 percent.

Some localities, including Da Nang, HCM City and Thua Thien - Hue, have begun building and putting into operation common shared data, providing open data for the handling of administrative procedures under the principle of putting people at the center.

Thanks to the database improvement, people don’t have to repeatedly declare information and visit state agencies multiple times. The databases, which provide ‘true’, ‘sufficient’, ‘clean’ and ‘live’ information, have also been useful for state management and policy making.

A report showed that about 1.78 million transactions through the National Data Exchange Platform (NDXP) are conducted daily. The total number of transactions through this platform has reached 1.65 billion transactions.

However, problems still exist. Deputy director of the Da Nang Department of Information and Communications Tran Ngoc Thach said some central agencies, including the General Department of Taxation, General Statistics Office and Ministry of Planning and Investment, still don’t share data with local authorities because the regulations in some specialized laws contradict regulations in Decree 47 released in 2020. The ministries and branches are still awaiting the amendment of specialized laws.

Van Anh