Quang Ninh (VNA) – Together withthe capital city of Hanoi and the southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City,Quang Ninh has become ready to connect with the national public service portal– which will be launched at the end of November 2019.

The northeastern province is one of the leadinglocalities nationwide in building e-government and smart city. 

In 2015, Quang Ninh asked the Prime Minister forpermission to pilot the operation of public administration centres of the province and 14 localities. Thisproposal was approved by the Government leader.

In 2016, Quang Ninh began to implement a smartcity model project, which applies advanced technologies to develop integrateddatabase for all sectors.

In August 2019, Quang Ninh put into operation asmart city operation centre and the province’s public service portal. Thecentre connects the database of departments and agencies in all socio-economicand cultural fields. It also connects surveillance camera systems in theprovince, such as those at road intersections, the provincial publicadministrative centre and other major public facilities.

The province is working towards offering more onlineservices such as individual e-tax payment and customs procedure completion.

Quang Ninh aims to build Ha Long city – which ishome to the world natural heritage site of Ha Long Bay – into a smart city bythe end of 2010.

The city will apply technologies in various sectorsincluding health, education, governance, transport, finance-banking andtaxation with an aim to provide convenient services to people and businesses.

Five smart-city projects have investment for the2017-2020 period, including plans to upgrade lighting system, set uponline tax collection system and technology application in urban management andimprove tourism safety on Ha Long Bay.

According to the municipal People’s Committee,authorities have completed drawing up plans of these projects. Nearly 3,500Light Emitting Diode (LED) lamps – which help save electricity - havebeen installed on 18 key roads of the city, while a public lighting controllingcentre has been built to supervise the operation of the city’s lighting system.

The city’s Taxation Department has also appliedtechnology in managing electronic bills of businesses, households andindividuals. A total 986 out of 3,607 local enterprises have used electronicbills. More than 3,000 units pay tax online.

Ha Long aims to apply electronic bills at 60 percentof local businesses by this year and all by 2020.

The provincial general hospital, Obstetrics andPaediatrics Hospital and Bai Chay Hospital are also using electronichealth records.

Patients may use hospital-issued cards thatshow their personal information and health records to book medical check-upappointments.

Earlier, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc hadapproved a master plan to develop the city into a world-class tourism andservice hub by 2050. Under the plan, Ha Long will be converted into acivilised and friendly sea tourism city with synchronous and modernsocio-economic infrastructure systems.

The national public service portal will be setup at a unique address to publicise information regarding administrativeprocedures and provide public services, ensuring inspection and assessmentof individuals and organisations as well as accountability of State agencies.

The launch of the portal aims to improve thequality of public services by State agencies, largely by digitalising theprocess.
 
It is also expected to improve Vietnam’sperformance in Online Services Index of the E-Government Development Index asrated by the United Nations (UN), and complete institutions for online publicservice supply, especially online administrative procedures.

The portal will offer at least 30 percent ofessential public services of ministries, agencies and localities by 2030, whichwill increase 20 percent each year towards all public services at the third andfourth levels.

Particularly, with the Simple Single Sign On(SSO) platform, the portal is expected to have 500,000 accounts in 2019, onemillion in 2020 and at least eight million in 2030./.