The Hanoi Times - The sixth annual Vietnam e-Government Symposium, which took place in Hanoi o­n Dec. 16-17, aimed to seek measures to combine e-Government with administrative reform and promote the application of information technology in State management work.

The building of e-Government is part of Vietnam’s administrative reform strategy to help State agencies and local authorities at all levels perform their duties in a quick efficient and economical manner.

More than 40 speeches by policy-markers and domestic and foreign experts focused o­n sharing experiences and dealing with obstacles in the building of e-Government. Two key concerns - technology infrastructure and financial investment for e-government - were mentioned by many delegates.

Dr. Dinh Duy Hoa, head of the administrative reform department under the Interior Ministry, said that administrative reform plays a key role in implementing Vietnam’s renewal and international economic integration process. The country is developing a law-governed socialist state under a democratic, transparent, modern administrative model in order to meet the increasing requirements for rapid and sustainable economic growth.

Dr. Hoa also emphasised the need to step up the reform of institutions, State administrative apparatus and public finance.

Looking towards a “wireless society”

According to, Nguyen Thanh Phuc, head of IT applications department under the Ministry of Information and Communications, Vietnam is striving to build a complete e-Government by 2010, thus shifting from the tradition of working with paper documents to the new method of handling e-documents via the Internet. Administrative procedures will gradually follow a “one-stop shop” model, and o­nline dialogues between leaders and citizens will be accelerated, he said.

Mr Phuc revealed that by 2010 an e-information portal will be built for State employees. Four ministries – the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Education and Training – will pilot a new wireless model. Five provinces and cities, namely Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Lao Cai, Quang Ninh, Nghe An and Dak Lak, will also apply this model.

In addition, the Vietnamese government will set up more e-channels to receive the opinions of citizens and businesses, and a “one-stop shop” model for all localities and organised conferences via the Internet.

Quach Tuan Ngoc, head of the IT department under the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), said that web conferencing is very convenient because it allows the sharing of visuals, software and data, as well as conducting votes. It is also an effective tool for distance education and o­n-the-job training activities.

The MOET has launched a number of free services allowing citizens to complete administrative procedures via the Internet, such as the e-portal at http://thi.moet.gov.vn.

Building a framework for e-government

Dr. Vu Duy Loi, head of the IT department under the Party Central Committee’s Office, proposed to build an architectural framework for e-government. This framework includes three layers: (1) technical infrastructure layer, (2) middle layer and (3) software application layer.

According to Dr. Loi, it is necessary to build this framework in order to ensure the effectiveness of State agencies’ IT application activities, as well as the synchronism of e-information portal systems. Although Vietnam achieved considerable results in computerisation, the country is still

facing a number of challenges in IT applications in State agencies, which do not have a proper link in terms of “the vertical” (from central to grassroots levels) and “the horizontal” (interconnection among agencies).