Digital transformation in public sector serves national growth

Digital transformation in public sector serves national growth

Alongside preventive capabilities, agencies and organisations must proactively build capacity for detection, response, and recovery to ensure when an incident occurs, essential operations can be maintained and quickly restored to normalcy.

Vũ Duy Hiền, Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam National Cybersecurity Association, speaks at the event. —VNS Photo

Digital transformation in the public sector must focus on building sustainable infrastructure and ensuring data security for national growth, experts said at a seminar on Monday.

Speaking at the seminar on digital transformation in the public sector, Vũ Duy Hiền, Deputy Secretary General of the Vietnam National Cybersecurity Association, said that the nation's digital transformation is entering a new phase of development.

Hiền said: “While the previous stage focused on digitising processes, building platforms, and migrating services to the digital environment, the current stage demands a deeper approach: reorganising governance and operational methods based on data, and establishing digital infrastructure capable of connectivity, sharing, scalability, and long-term utility.”

He noted that the Government's issuance of the National Strategy on Digital Transformation for the 2026-2030 period, with an outlook to 2045; and the National Data Strategy for the 2026-2030 period, with a vision to 2045, underscores that data and digital infrastructure are key pillars of this new development model. As data evolves into a strategic asset and resource, the imperative is to effectively govern, leverage and protect it. Therefore, digital transformation must inextricably link with cybersecurity.

According to Hiền, in the public sector, the increasing scale of data connectivity, sharing, and utilisation opens up immense opportunities to enhance State management efficiency, improve service delivery for citizens and businesses and support decision-making processes.

However, as data connectivity expands and infrastructure becomes increasingly critical, the demands for security, safety and operational continuity rise accordingly.

“We must clearly recognise that cybersecurity needs to be integrated from the very outset of infrastructure development, data organisation and digital system design,” Hiền said.

Alongside preventive capabilities, agencies and organisations must proactively build capacity for detection, response, and recovery to ensure when an incident occurs, essential operations can be maintained and quickly restored to normalcy.

Current realities are imposing new demands on how data is organised and utilised within the public sector, particularly amidst the restructuring of organisational frameworks, administrative boundaries, and management systems.

When organisational structures change, data must be reorganised as well. However, this is not merely a technical matter. It encompasses data standardisation, connectivity, the delineation of responsibilities, access control, and ensuring security during data sharing and utilisation.

“We must aim for a system where data is interconnected yet controlled, shared yet protected and utilised to generate value without causing new risks,” Hiền said.

Concurrently, the rapid advancement of AI is opening up new avenues for development. However, AI can only deliver value when it is built upon a foundation of high-quality data, robust infrastructure, and a trustworthy digital environment. The issue of data today is fundamentally a matter of governance capacity, technological mastery, and digital sovereignty in this new phase of development, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Nguyễn Hồng Hiển, Director of the Department of Science, Technology, Innovation and Digital Transformation under the Central Commission for Policy and Strategy, said that the Government targets for gaining an average annual GDP growth rate of 10 per cent or higher during the 2026-2030 period; raising GDP per capita to approximately US$8,500 by 2030; and increasing the digital economy's share to about 30 per cent of GDP.

“Within the country’s new growth model, the public sector cannot remain on the sidelines and lag behind," Hiển said. 

"Digital transformation in the public sector is not merely the digitisation of existing processes. It is fundamentally about innovating national governance, enhancing management effectiveness and efficiency, and reducing compliance costs for citizens and businesses, which directly expand the scope for growth."

Hiển added that recent progress in developing digital infrastructure has been linked with the establishment of digital government. Việt Nam's public sector has been undertaking a dual transformation: simultaneously reorganising its administrative structure and restructuring operations on a digital foundation.

At the event, Henry Nguyen, Country Manager of Synology Vietnam, shared about building a centralised storage platform to enable more effective data management, sharing and utilisation; as well as preparing infrastructure for future data growth to meet the demands of digitisation and AI applications.

The event was held by the Central Commission for Policy and Strategy Commission, the Vietnam National Cybersecurity Association, Synology Vietnam and IEC Group. 

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