Vietnam off to slow start in going online with public services

According to guidelines laid out by the Vietnamese government, online public services in the country are categorized into four groups, depending on the range of tasks that can be performed digitally.

The first group comprises public services that provide online access to all information regarding the service, including procedures, required papers, deadlines, fees and service charges.

Nguyen Huu Dung and his wife, Le Thi Hong, look up land planning information at the headquarters of Binh Tan District's administration in Ho Chi Minh City, November 28, 2016.

Public services in the second group meet all criteria of the first group, in addition to allowing users to download forms and sample documents to be filled out at home before they are submitted to competent authorities.

The third group includes public services of the second group that also allows online submission of the papers, while still requiring users to pay fees and service charges at the relevant government bodies.

Public services falling into the fourth group are those in the third group that have an integrated online payment system. Processed papers are sent to users via mail or the Internet without requiring their presence at a public body at any stage during the procedure.

While an estimated 1,200 public services in Vietnam have the potential to fully go online, only a limited number have been taken to the Internet in practice.

The Ministry of Transport recently announced that ten of its services had completely gone online, including the licensing of transport services and issuing of International Driving Permits (IDP), license plates, and car badges.

Duong Hong Ha (L), a resident of Binh Tan District, fills out an online application form for a construction permit under the instructions of a district official, November 28, 2016.

Since its launch late May this year, as many as 3,000 online IDPs have been successfully issued to applicants, according to Vo Minh Tuan, an official at the country’s Directorate for Roads.

Meanwhile, in District 8 and Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City, 20 third-level online public services in the fields of construction, labor, wage, and business establishment have also been launched.

According to statistics provided by the Binh Tan administration, only 135 out of the 3,000 documents it had received over the past two months had been submitted online.

Similarly, only 73 construction permit documents have been submitted online to the District 8 administration since its launch in August.

The discouraging numbers are attributed to the fact that many Vietnamese are still reluctant to perform online tasks when it comes to administrative procedures, Huynh Thi Thuy, deputy head of Binh Tan District's Bureau of Home Affairs, said.

Meanwhile, certain papers are simply too many or too big to be scanned or photographed for online submission, Thuy explained.

Prospects of online public service are brighter in the field of taxation, where over 542,000 businesses have already registered to perform tax duties over the Internet, according to Nguyen Dai Tri, deputy director of the General Department of Taxation.

This number accounts for nearly 97 percent of all businesses operating in Vietnam.

As of October, over VND370.6 trillion (US$16.54 billion) worth of tax had been settled over the online payment gateway, Tri said, adding that the sum made up more than 53% of government revenue.