Bac Giang (VNA) – The northern province of Bac Giang is planningto focus on accelerating digital transformation and building an e-administration, adigital economy and a digital society, according to the provincial People’sCommittee.

The move aims to benefit both people and businesses, improve theeffectiveness of local governance and boost socio-economic recovery. Prioritywill be given to healthcare, education, the environment and natural resources,industry and investment attraction, agriculture, transport and logistics,tourism, media, and the judiciary.

The province plans to transform its traditional postal serviceinto a digital era that is a critical part of infrastructure for the digitaleconomy to push for an e-administration and a digital society. It will digitallytransition telecommunications infrastructure with the aim of expanding 5Gservice coverage to all residential areas by the end of this decade.

Bac Giang is also constructing and upgrading intra- andinter-provincial fiber optic cables to keep up with the growth of localbroadband services and smart cities.

Telecommunication cables will go underground at all new industrial parks,residential and urban zones. To date, around 40 – 50 percent of the existingindustrial parks, residential and urban zones havethe cables installed and buried below the ground.

Between now and 2030, the province will focus its effort onexpanding digital platforms, while applying new digital technologies in publicadministrative reforms, building smart cities and completing infrastructure fore-administration. It plans to develop a provincial data centre and database toboost key economic sectors. At the same time, a security operation centre willbe established to facilitate the safe operation of e-government.

Additionally, it will also utilise the fourthIndustrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) technologies to acceleratenon-cash payments, automated environmental monitoring and electronic healthrecords, while developing digital content, media and marketing and fosteringthe creative industry and digital content ecosystem.

There are currently five mobile network operators in Bac Giangwith more than 1,400 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) and over 5,200kmof cables, 10 percent of which are underground. The coverage of 3G and 4Gmobile networks in the province has reached 100 percent.

All departments as well as district- and commune-leveladministrations have connected their LAN to the province’s WAN (CPNet) and twodata centres.

The number of inquiries handled by its digital one-stop shopunits has reached 100 percent. All governmental employees own a business emailaccount for public duty. The province has granted over 4,500 digitalcertificates for local organisations and individuals, with all of the holdersapplying digital signatures.

Bac Giang is aiming to provide 100 percent of public services atLevel 4 by the end of 2025 on various platforms, including mobile devices.Level 4 is the highest for online public services, which allows users to filland submit forms and pay fees online.

Over 95 percent of the documents, applications at the provinciallevel will be handled online by then while the rates of documents andapplications processed online at the district and communal levels expected toreach 85 percent and 65 percent, respectively.

By 2025, over 60 percent of inspection activities by statemanagement agencies in the province will be carried out digitally. The digitaleconomy will account for about 25 percent of the province's gross regionaldomestic product (GRDP).

Bac Giang will have over 800 digital enterprises and 100 percent ofthe households and all administrative units at communal level will have accessto fibre optic broadband network by the same year. Two smart cities will bebuilt in Bac Giang city and Viet Yen district.

A total of 440 IT and telecom firms are operating in Bac Giang,generating more than 124 trillion VND (5.35 billion USD) in revenue./.