Henig: HCM City dwellers benefit from digital transformation
January, 25/2023 – 10:14
Thanks to adapting to digital transformation trends, residents in HCM City are increasingly enjoying technological conveniences in many aspects of life.
HCM CITY — Thanks to adapting to digital transformation trends, residents in HCM City are increasingly enjoying technological conveniences in many aspects of life.
Nguyễn Văn Tuấn, 52, a rental house owner in District 3, told Sài Gòn Giải Phóng (Liberated Sài Gòn) newspaper that he went to the police headquarters of Ward 12 to submit an application for temporary residence registration for a tenant.
After receiving his application, the ward officer guided him about the registration of a national public service account to submit online documents for the next time.
“I now can sit at home and do it. The online service is both convenient and time-saving,” he said.
When high tide in the city exceeded the warning level, Nguyễn Hoàng Bạch Phụng, who works in District 1, often opens the UDI Maps application to get updates on the flood situation of the way back to her home on Phạm Hữu Lầu Street in Nhà Bè District.
“Besides providing updates on the current status the flooding, the application also helps users find a way to avoid flooded locations and even sends information and images about the flooded areas to warn people,” she said.
Before buying a house in Thủ Đức city’s Phú Hữu Ward, Lê Minh Nhựt had searched for information on housing planning at the website ttqh-thuduc.tphcm.gov.vn.
Being experienced in carrying out legal procedures related to real estate, he said: “The information on the website is quite reliable.”
In addition, people can look up information about the status of the application and they can be notified by text message about the amount to be paid, can pay online and receive the results by email or post on the website, he added.
Phạm Thị Hồng Loan, a resident living in an apartment building in Trung Sơn Residential Area in Bình Chánh District, said she will immediately send a message to Switchboard 1022 when her neighbours sing karaoke in the evening loudly.
“About an hour later, the authorised force came to remind the neighbour to turn down the loudspeaker not to disturb others,” she said.
City residents can report many issues, such as illegal construction causing environmental pollution, on five channels of the portal 1022, including call centre 1022, mobile app “Call Center 1022”, portal https://1022.tphcm.gov.vn, email: 1022@tphcm.gov. vn, and the social network fanpage: https://www.facebook.com/1022.tphcm.gov.vn.
They can also report information to the district’s online application. Most issues through these applications will be processed within about two hours of receiving them.
Trần Hữu Tài, chairman of the People’s Committee of Ward 12 in District 3, said since the beginning of September last year, the ward has set up five groups to carry out digital transformation at the headquarters of the ward’s People’s Committee, the police station and the neighbourhoods.
Police officers instructed group guides who will support residents to register for their accounts in the National Public Service portal and online administrative procedures.
The teams also help business households to use non-cash payment applications, and the Etax Mobile application to look up online taxpayer information, electronic tax transactions, and online tax payments.
Phạm Thị Thúy Hằng, vice chairwoman of District 3’s People’s Committee, said before people had to spend four to six days receiving a business registration certificate after they submitted a full application.
“Thanks to the application of technology, time has shortened,” she said. The district can now return the results to people in just four working hours.
Additionally, the issuance of a tax code is done right after the business registration certificate is issued, so people can save an extra step of registering for a tax code.
For people who want to do birth, marriage, and death registrations, civil servants can look up the information on the system. If the information is legal and full, they will issue a certificate immediately, not letting people wait from one to three days as before.
District 10’s People’s Committee chairwoman Nguyễn Thị Thu Hường said last year the district handled all of nearly 123,000 administrative records on time thanks to the application of technology.
The rate of applying for public services online is nearly 98 percent. More than 97 percent of people and businesses are satisfied with public online services.
Trần Hoàng Quân, director of the city’s Department of Construction, said the department will continue to use the SXD711 mobile App to complete work in the coming time.
Meanwhile, the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment is carrying out the programme “Digital transformation of natural resources and environment in the city” and the project “Building HCM City to become a smart city with natural resources – environment.”
The department will also promote non-cash payments in the collection of fees and taxes with the aim of shortening the time for administrative procedures, creating favorable conditions for enterprises to pay taxes.
— VNS LINK
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Henig: Innovative start-ups in the e-commerce sector
January, 25/2023 – 08:29
E-commerce start-ups are becoming more and more popular and are considered relatively safe in the fields of innovative start-ups in Việt Nam today.
HÀ NỘI — E-commerce start-ups are becoming more and more popular and are considered relatively safe in the fields of innovative start-ups in Việt Nam today.
However, safety does not mean success because to succeed in a vibrant developing market requires effort and creative thinking.
Việt Nam is considered to have a lot of potential for start-ups in the e-commerce sector, with 72.1 million internet users, accounting for 73.2 per cent of the population, ranking 12th in terms of internet users globally by September last year.
Two years of the COVID-19 pandemic have changed the shopping habits of the majority of consumers, shifting from direct shopping to online shopping.
This is one of the important levers that create the amazing development of Việt Nam’s e-commerce industry.
A report by the Ministry of Industry and Trade last year showed that the size of Vietnamese retail e-commerce market is estimated at US$16.4 billion, accounting for 7.5 per cent of the country’s revenue from consumer goods and services.
The number of online shopping users reached 57-60 million people, accounting for 74.8 per cent of internet users, last year, of which the online shopping value of a Vietnamese person is about $260-285.
In addition, with a growth rate of 20 per cent per year, Việt Nam is also ranked by eMarketer, an American market research company, in the group of five countries with the world’s leading e-commerce growth rate.
The booming e-commerce market has great potential, creating many opportunities for Vietnamese start-ups.
Starting a business in e-commerce is also in line with the Government’s policy of promoting the development of the digital economy.
The legal framework for e-commerce activities is increasingly complete; start-ups are encouraged, and favourable conditions and open mechanisms created for development.
On the other hand, Việt Nam’s e-commerce market is still quite young, so there is still a lot of room for Vietnamese start-ups.
In addition to many advantages, start-ups in the field of e-commerce also face many obstacles.
There is the high level of competition due to the very early participation of big names such as Shopee, Lazada, Amazon or Tiki and Sendo.
In addition, there are obstacles coming from an underdeveloped payment system, goods infrastructure, packaging, warehousing, goods rotation, customs clearance, and the lack of trust of a part of consumers when buying online.
However, the key point of an innovative start-up is an idea, in which difference is a decisive factor, so the challenge is not small coming from the start-ups themselves, requiring creativity and right-oriented thinking.
At the same time, they must find sustainable solutions to have new users and retain existing users.
Although there is no exact number of start-ups in the field of e-commerce, it is estimated that about 387 start-ups were formed and operated with certain success.
Compared to the development potential of Việt Nam’s e-commerce, it is thought that this number is still quite modest.
Therefore, it is necessary to continue promoting start-ups, creating a vibrant market with healthy competition, contributing to making this field one of the key areas of the digital economy.
— VNS LINK
Henig: Urban planning, management to be focus in 2023: construction minister
January, 25/2023 – 09:23
Minister of Construction Nguyễn Thanh Nghị talks to Vietnam News Agency on the growth of the sector in 2022 and its priorities for 2023 and onwards, especially with regards to urban planning and management.
Minister of Construction Nguyễn Thanh Nghị spoke to Vietnam News Agency on the growth of the sector in 2022 and its priorities for 2023 and onwards, especially with regard to urban planning and real estate.
2022 is a year of many difficulties, but the construction industry has achieved good growth, all things considered. How do you evaluate the results of the construction industry achieved in the past year?
2022 is a year of recovery, a foundation year in the realisation of the goals of the Resolution of the 13th Party National Congress and the five-year socio-economic development plan 2021-26. But Việt Nam’s economy has had a lot of complex, unprecedented problems to deal with, with intertwining advantages and headwinds, while climate change and natural hazards continue to grow in intensity and unpredictability, and as the global economic and political situation are highly volatile.
In that context, with the attention and leadership of the Party, the National Assembly, the Government, the Prime Minister, the close coordination of central and local ministries, along with the efforts from workers, officials, employees and the business community in the whole industry, in 2022, the construction industry has overcome difficulties and challenges, met and even exceeded all the main goals and targets.
The industry recorded a growth rate of 8.17 per cent, significantly higher than the objective of 5.6 per cent. The urbanisation rate countrywide has hit 41.7 per cent, 1.2 per cent higher than 2021. The proportion of the urban population having access to clean water through a centralised water supply system reached 94.2 per cent, up 2.2 per cent compared to the year before.
The average floor space for each person in the country reached 25.5sq.m., up 0.5sq.m compared to 2021.
The effectiveness and efficiency of State management in the fields assigned by the Government are enhanced. At the same time, legal institutions in construction continued to be improved with higher quality, contributing to a more favourable, open, and strongly decentralised environment for the local governments.
Planning, architecture and urban development management activities continue to receive more attention and be implemented effectively. Construction investment management also witnessed positive changes, with the quality of the works basically under supervision. Inspection, examination, verification, design appraisal, acceptance testing and capacity management of construction entities is strictly carried out, contributing to the prevention of loss and waste.
While the construction material market has seen serious fluctuations, especially a spike in costs in the early half of 2022, thanks to many efforts from the Ministry of Construction and localities, the market has stabilised from the third quarter of 2022.
The real estate market logged growth in the first months of 2022, but slowed down in the second half of the year due to many difficulties, especially the shortage of supply, lack of social housing, housing for low- and middle-income people, difficulties in mobilising and accessing capital sources, while corporate bonds in real estate began to reveal serious shortcomings and risks.
Construction authorities and the Government are proposing many sets of measures to develop a healthy, stable real estate market in 2023.
On January 24, 2022, the Politburo’s Resolution No.06/NQ-TW on the planning, building, management and sustainable development of urban areas in Việt Nam towards 2030, with a vision to 2045, was released. This is the first time the Politburo has had a thematic resolution on urban management and development. How has the Ministry of Construction participated in the making of the resolution and how does it plan to implement this?
We welcome the resolution, it affirms the role of urban development in the development of the country, and it also lays out strategic orientations – accompanied by specific tasks – that need to be done from now until 2030.
The construction ministry has then worked with other ministries, agencies, and localities to build the Government’s Resolution No.148/NQ-CP – which was issued on November 11, 2022 – on the implementation of the Politburo’s resolution.
The Government has set out its vision, specific goals and 33 specific tasks, along with the focal agency and coordinating agencies, the time of completion and deliverables so that the Government, ministries, and local authorities could implement the overall and specific objective of the Politburo’s resolution.
In order for Politburo’s Resolution No.06-NQ/TW to be widely disseminated to cities’ authorities throughout the country, the Ministry of Construction has coordinated with the Central Economic Commission and the Party Central Commission for Education and Information to organise conferences on the resolution – the Việt Nam Urban Sustainable Development Forum, along with three symposiums, and the National Urban Conference in 2022.
The world economy is forecast to have many unpredictable developments, affecting the country’s economy, including activities of construction enterprises and the real estate market. Could you please tell me, what orientations and solutions does the Ministry of Construction have for 2023 and the following years?
In 2023 and the coming years, the construction industry will continue to focus on three key breakthroughs identified for the 2021-2026 term of the industry, which are perfecting the legal institution on construction to strengthen state management, at the same time creating a favourable and open environment for people and businesses, further decentralisation (to local governments) to remove bottlenecks that hinder the development of the industry and the operation of enterprises.
In addition, the Ministry of Construction will focus on urban development planning and management, improve the quality of planning to match the mindset, vision, and forecasting while ensuring feasibility. We will exercise strict control in the stages of planning appraisal and adjustment, as well as strengthen local inspection and guidance activities, and rectify local authorities’ capacities and conduct in planning issues.
At the same time, legal regulations and management tools will continue to be perfected to strictly control the process of synchronous urban development – one that goes in tandem with industrialisation, modernisation, rural development, enhancing the competitiveness of urban areas, effectively using resources, especially resources from land, from urban space development.
— VNS LINK
