Digitalization solutions available for Finance operations

	Vietnamese enterprises still sharing revenue from digital economy
	Treasury authorities digitize public finance reform

In the future, 100% administrative procedures will be digitalized by the Finance sector. In Photo: Operation at Lang Son Border Gate Customs Branch. Photo: T.A

Efforts to modernize

The Finance sector has made fast and sustainable development steps, and performed its political tasks, mobilized and effectively used financial resources for socio-economic development. Currently, information technology has been widely and deeply applied to most financial operations, and played an important role in key operations, including:executive management of the state budget, management of state budget revenues and expenditures; e-payment and government bond management; management in tax and customs; deployment of e-tax, e-customs, National Single Window; management of public debt, price, public assets; management and supervision of financial markets; and State reserve management.

For the Customs, Deputy Director General of Vietnam Customs Hoang Viet Cuong said the sector has provided 172 of 192 online public services at level 3 and 4, accounting for 90% of the total administrative procedures deployed at 100% of customs branches, municipal and provincial customs departments. Of which, 163 online public services at level 4 allow to receive, process dossiers, pay taxes, fees, charges and return results online.

The core administrative procedures, such as customs clearance of goods and collection of import and export taxes have been provided with online public services at level 4, which is the highest level classified by the Ministry of Information and Communications. In the first eight months of 2019, the Customs authority has received and processed 99.39% of e-customs declarations with import-export turnover of US$336.99 billion. The revenue from fees and charges collected online accounts for 94% of the General Department of Vietnam Customs' revenue.

Mr. Dang Ngoc Minh, Deputy Director of the General Department of Taxation said as of August 2019, the total number of administrative procedures in the area of tax administration is 304. Of which, the number of online public services at level 2 is 171, at level 3 is 5and level 4 is 118. The e-tax declaration system has been implemented at all provincial and municipal tax departments and at 100% of their tax branches. As of the end of August, 99.8% of all businesses in the country used e-tax declaration services. The General Department has coordinated with 50 commercial banks and 63 tax departments to deploy the e-tax payment service, as well as promoted and encouraged businesses to use the service. By the end of August 2019, the number of businesses registered to use the service with the tax authority reached 99.56%. The e-tax refund system has been expanded to provide services to taxpayers in 63 provinces and cities with the participation of 94.03% of businesses.

Those are the most concrete figures for the efforts of "digitizing" specialised operations of the Finance sector.

Quantify targets

In early 2019, the Government issued Resolution No.17/NQ-CP on some key tasks and solutions to develop e-Government in the period 2019-2020, towards 2025. Implementing this Resolution, the Ministry of Finance signed Decision No.844/QD-BTC promulgating the Action Plan of the Ministry of Finance to implement some key tasks and solutions for the development of e-government in the period 2019-2020, towards 2025, including many quantified criteria.

Accordingly, in the period 2019-2020, it is necessary to complete the legal framework for information technology (IT) application to improve the hiring of IT services at the Ministry of Finance; issue documents on management, connection and data sharing in the Finance sector, and complete regulations on management and operation of IT systems in the Finance sector. The rate of dossiers processed online among total processed administrative dossiers accounts for more than percent; 30 percent of online public service at levels 3 and 4 are integrated with the National Portal; 100 percent of dossiers are processed on the public service portal and Single Window portal. For 2021-2025, the Ministry of Finance will integrate 50 percent of online public services at levels 3 and 4 with the National Portal; the rate of dossier processed through online public service at levels 3 and 4 reaches more than 50 percent; 80 percent of eligible administrative procedures are implemented at online public service levels 3 and 4; 90 percent of Ministry of Finance’s dossiers are processed online.

The aforementioned targets are very specific. In order to meet them, the Ministry of Finance has given orientations. According to Deputy Minister of Finance Vu Thi Mai, the Finance sector is quickly approaching and taking an active, facilitating and leading role in Vietnam's digital economy. In addition, the Finance sector needs to regularly review financial and budgetary policies to promote the development of new types of businesses and services in the digital economy.

Determining 2019 as a breakthrough year in building e-Government, the Ministry of Finance’s leaders also provided some solutions. Of which, the deployment of the inter-connection of e-document, the building the public service portal and National Information system of the Ministry of Finance and providing online public services at levels 3 and 4 are crucial. In addition, focusing on building core application systems and completing the National Database on Finance; building, operating and using IT application systems effectively in the internal operation of the Finance sector, prioritizing IT applications for administrative reforms and raising work efficiency.

Modernizing IT infrastructure of the Finance sector towards modern technologies in line with the requirements of deployment in each phase while ensuring security for the operation of the information systems of the Finance sector on the institutional aspects, technical plans and operational management; reforming the investment management, improving the management apparatus, developing IT human resources to meet the requirements and tasks on modernization.

The Ministry of Finance has built a National Databaseon Finance to plan, build and develop components of the National Database on Finance in aunified manner. According to Mr. Hoang Xuan Nam, Deputy Director of the Department of Financial Informatics and Statistics under the Ministry of Finance, this is a key and long-term plan of the Ministry of Finance. Through each stage, data management and analysis architecture will be upgraded to support the automation of the decision-making and problem-solving process when generating new data streams. It also ensures the ability of features and control to architectural models.

These solutions are expected to help the Finance sector continue to maintain its leading position in the implementation of e-Government.