Quang Ninh strives for comprehensive digital transformation

Quang Ninh Province is among the leaders in adopting digital transformation in the handling of administrative procedures and e-government building towards building a digital government and paperless state agencies.

So far, the province has built a firm technical infrastructure system and mobilised the active and effective participation of departments, sectors, localities and people.

This is an important foundation to make Quang Ninh an outstanding and leading province in comprehensive digital transformation, towards becoming a national example in digital transformation.

Despite gaining many important results, Quang Ninh has always identified bottlenecks and tapped into the space for reform with consistent mottos that “administrative reform only has a starting point and has no ending” and that “the people, businesses and investors’ satisfaction is the measure of work performance”.

For people’s and businesses’ satisfaction

In Quang Ninh, public services that are entirely online are being provided in many areas, such as applying to change driving licences and applying for ordinary passports.

Nguyen Van Yen from Uong Bi City found it very convenient and time-saving, when the entire process of submitting documents and paying the fees to apply for a new driving licence could be conducted online without having to visit a public office.

Le Thi Hien from Quang Yen Town said it took her only half an hour to complete the passport application process on her smartphone at home and the passport would be delivered to her by post.

It can be seen that Quang Ninh is one of the few localities which has completed connecting its public service portal with the national public service portal and six other administrative procedure handling systems of ministries. It has also finished linking the provincial electronic government system with the national population database and more than ten other database systems in key areas, such as business, natural resources and the environment, construction, justice and insurance.

The development of such digital infrastructure has helped Quang Ninh make great progress in attracting foreign investment. A foreign enterprise registering to operate in the province will be provided with support in administrative procedures, such as fast-track procedures and electronic documents. In addition, the provincial government provides 24/7 support for enterprises, whether it is a working day or not.

Quang Ninh Acting Chairman Cao Tuong Huy said, the province recently granted investment licences to two projects by Foxconn Singapore PTE LTD, in the Song Khoai Industrial Park, with a total investment of 250 million USD. What is special is that both projects were approved within 12 working hours, a reduction of 14 days, compared to the normal regulation.

The duration for handling administrative procedures has been cut by 40-50%, compared to the time stipulated by the central government. For completely online public services, the processing time is even shorter.

The province is also open and transparent concerning officials responsible for processing entirely online public services, who are subject to supervision and assessment. This demonstrates the professionalism in the functioning of the digital government.

Towards comprehensive digital government

Quang Ninh currently ranks 11th nationwide in the total score on building digital government, with its information system closely connected with the information systems of ministries and national databases.

The province is also working to finetune the system for granting and managing agricultural production codes, digitalising the forest database, and tracking the origin of OCOP products, while also piloting the online market model, cashless payment and electronic tax payment.

Intending to become an outstanding province in comprehensive digital transformation, Quang Ninh is striving to carry out the process across three pillars: digital government, digital economy and digital society. It is also pioneering in land database digital transformation.

In the first half of 2023, Quang Ninh recorded important results in building and developing electronic and digital government. The province is providing 1,462 public services on its portal and 1,231 on the national portal, of which more than 81% are entirely online.

Digital transformation has enhanced the people’s quality of life and created a groundwork for building a modern administration, helping to successfully realise the provincial goal of improving the business and investment climate, attracting investment and promoting socio-economic development.