Advancing Digital Transformation for a Progressive Tien Giang”

Following the execution of Resolution No. 08-NQ/TU on October 6, 2021, by the Tien Giang Provincial Party Committee, the province’s digital transformation journey has yielded encouraging outcomes. Mr. Tran Van Dung, the Director of the Tien Giang Department of Information and Communications, stated that recognizing the numerous challenges that digital transformation must surmount, Tien Giang is implementing effective and appropriate measures to fulfill this objective.

How effectively are the current infrastructure development and information and communication services in Tien Giang province catering to the needs of its residents, businesses, and investors?

In late 2023, the province's digital infrastructure has basically met the needs of people and businesses and the requirements of building digital government and digital transformation in the coming time. Specifically, 85.5% of adults use smartphones; 87.4% of households have smartphones and nearly 70% of households have fiber optic broadband. Mobile coverage has reached 100% of communes, wards and towns; 100% of governmental agencies have network connections. The province has 23 postal companies with 275 service points, with an average radius of 1,705 km per service point. The average number of residents to a service point is 6,471.

The province is home to 4,977 base transceiver stations (BTSs), including 1,290 2G stations, 1,814 3G stations and 1,873 4G stations. All communes, wards and towns have fiber optic cable and broadband internet connections. Telephone subscribers (fixed wireless, fixed wired, postpaid mobile, prepaid mobile) totaled 2,010,614 or a density of 113 subscribers per 100 people. The Provincial Data Integration Center has been gradually upgraded and expanded to provide a variety of services and meet the requirements of building information systems for the digital government.

Platform applications have been deployed synchronously and widely from province and district to commune, even both education and health sectors. Especially, the “Electronic Office” system, the electronic single-window and public service system, the electronic health system, the school management system, the digital public employee application (TiengiangG), the digital citizenship application (TiengiangS) have been deployed to cover all relevant civil servants and provide essential transaction and information for people.

The first Viettel 5G service testing is started in Tien Giang province.

Since the implementation of Resolution No. 08-NQ/TU on October 6, 2021, which aimed at digitally transforming Tien Giang province by 2025 with a vision to 2030, what notable successes have been achieved and what challenges still need to be addressed?

After more than two years of implementation, digital transformation has produced remarkable results: Raising the awareness of public employees and local people about digital transformation; basically forming digital government services (TienGiangG application) for smooth, synchronous management and operation on the network environment and transition towards the digital government; deploying TienGiangS digital citizen platform; operating the telephone switchboard for receiving and processing feedback and petitions (Tien Giang public service switchboard - 1022). These activities help receive, process and respond to opinions and feedback from individuals and organizations in a timely, effective manner, and foster noncash payment. Digital transformation has also been stepped up in such fields as education, healthcare, agriculture, environment, transport, industry, labor, war invalids -social affairs and tourism, thus helping enhance the quality of operations for people and businesses.

The province contacted and invited investors to locate their projects in MeKong ITP Software Park (over 7 hectares in My Tho City) for digital product development and business and draw high-quality personnel for developing local businesses (currently, four offices and units with over 400 IT engineers are making and trading software services and digital contents for the province and the region and outsourcing software for countries). The province has sped up ICT development; developed a digital transformation project for Tien Giang University to move towards building a digital university that trains and supplies digital human resources; continued to build and implement the My Tho smart city project to better serve the increasing demand for services and development of people and businesses.

Besides good results, digital transformation has also revealed some limitations like the slow interconnection and data sharing among information systems, national databases and other information systems/databases of central and local agencies (on population, justice and business registration). Moreover, the understanding and implementation of Resolution No. 08-NQ/TU dated October 6, 2021 remains shallow and narrow and lacks initiatives and positive actions of relevant agencies while the human resources of the Department of Information and Communications is very limited. In the coming time, the department will continue to advise the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People's Committee to synchronously carry out tasks and solutions.

The Tien Giang Provincial Planning for the 2021- 2030 period, with a vision to 2050, introduces several new growth drivers for the province, but also sets forth new requirements and tasks for various sectors. Could you elaborate on these specific requirements and tasks?

The draft of Tien Giang Provincial Planning for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision to 2050, set a general goal to 2030: Developing modern, synchronous, secure information and communication infrastructure, promoting digital transformation to develop digital government, digital economy, digital society; bringing Tien Giang to the group of Top 20 Digital Transformation Index (DTI); developing and improving the quality of 4G and 5G broadband mobile networks to meet industrial and high-tech infrastructure needs, digitizing the provision of traditional postal services based on personal identification/digital address platforms integrated with digital maps; deploying smart cities for My Tho City, towns and new urban areas, developing information technology industry, investing in Mekong Software Park.

On that basis, the department worked out specific goals and tasks. Regarding postal services, by 2025, 80% of households will have digital addresses and 605 of postal items are tagged with tracking/location. Regarding digital infrastructure, the department set the targeted ratio of residents to IoT devices at 5-10 by 2025 and 20-25 by 2030. The broadband fiber cable network infrastructure will reach 100% of communes/wards/towns; over 80% of households will have a fiber optic Internet line; over 50% of the population will have an electronic payment account; and over 70% and 85% of the population will have smartphones by 2025 and 2030, respectively.

The planning also set a number of goals for building digital government: by 2025, 90% of all online public services will be provided on many different means of access and public/business satisfaction with the provision of administrative procedures will be as high as at least 90%. By 2025, the digital economy will account for 15% of the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) and the share of digital economy in each industry/field will be at least 10%. Regarding the development of digital society, by 2025, fiber optic broadband network infrastructure will cover 80% of households; 4G/5G mobile network services and smart phones will be popular; and over 50% of the population will have electronic payment accounts. Regarding the construction of smart cities, at first, digital transformation will be initially implemented in eight priority areas: education, health, agriculture, natural resources and environment, transportation and logistics, industry, labor and social security, culture and tourism.

Hopefully, with the close guidance of the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial People's Committee and the participation of the entire political system, these goals will be completed as soon as possible to move towards the goal of a far-reaching Tien Giang.

Thank you so much!

Source: Vietnam Business Forum