Prague (VNA) – The development of the digital economy in Vietnam will create new opportunities for Czech companiesoperating in this field in the Southeast Asian nation, particularly in cybersecurity or digital banking, according to Czech diplomat David Jarkulisch.

The diplomat at the Czech Embassy in Hanoi recentlywrote an article on Vietnam’s newly-approved strategy on the Fourth IndustrialRevolution, posted on the Czech Foreign Ministry’s website mzv.cz.

He said that Vietnam's new strategy has relatively ambitiousgoals. It aims to transform the current growth model mainly based on the use ofcheap labour and targets the digital economy contributing to 30 percent of theGDP by 2030.

In addition to the rapid introduction of new technologiesand the digitization of the economy, it also expects the overallcompetitiveness of the economy to grow and Vietnam's position in internationalcomparisons to improve significantly. Within ten years, Vietnam may be amongthe top 40 countries in the Global Innovation Index, the top 30 countries inthe Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) and the top 50 countries in E-GovernmentDevelopment Index (EGDI).

As part of the strategy, the Vietnamese government has alsoidentified 99 priority technologies, which it will focus on supporting,including artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, quantum technology,bioinformatics, aerospace technology, remote sensing technology, research anddevelopment of high-resolution screens, or advanced 3D printing technology.

However, Vietnam is not at the very beginning in thedevelopment of the digital economy. Already during the last five years, thecountry has managed to prepare a relatively good starting position and createthe basic preconditions for further growth. In addition, the growth rate of thedigital economy accelerated significantly with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,bringing the total value of the Vietnamese Internet economy up 16 percent to 14billion USD last year. According to a recently published Google study, thegrowth motivations of this sector in Vietnam should continue to accelerate andreach a volume of up to 52 billion USD in 2025.

In many aspects needed for the development of the digitaleconomy, Vietnam is not lagging behind even its closest regional competitors.Within the countries of Southeast Asia, Vietnam ranks third in the number ofInternet users, third in mobile phone users and second in the average speed ofmobile Internet. Today, Vietnam can also be proud to be one of the countrieswith the largest numbers of Facebook users in the world. With sixty millionregistered users, Vietnam has the eighth largest Facebook community in theworld, the diplomat wrote./