CEO FPT IS: “Public-private partnership will help boost the exploitation of digital data sources”

At the Viet Nam – Asia DX Summit 2023, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Minh – CEO of FPT Information System Corporation (FPT IS) – affirms that the public-private partnership (PPP) will be the key to helping boost the implementation of the national databases. Besides, Mr. Minh has made three major proposals for Vietnam to exploit the power of digital data sources, creating a premise to promote the models of digital government and digital society in the future.

What is the key to promoting the implementation of the national databases?

According to the e-Conomy SEA 2022 report by Google, Temasek & Bain, Vietnam is the country with the fastest growing digital economy in Southeast Asia. Also, according to statistics from the Vietnam Ministry of Information and Communications, the digital economy accounts for approximately 14.26% of the GDP of Vietnam. In particular, exploiting and using digital data in a smart way will quickly generate new business models, new digital economic models, and deliver new values for our country.

However, it has been struggling to construct and exploit the national databases: “In addition to the institutional and legal corridor issues mentioned throughout the event, two major problems in the construction of the national databases include, firstly, the constant and rapid change of technology which is inversely proportional to the delay in the process of evaluating and approving public investment. Making the pace of investment keep up with the development of technologies is a huge challenge. Secondly, it is the problem that public investment resources are not adequate to meet the society’s needs for data usage”, said Mr. Minh.

Regarding the above-mentioned difficulties, what will be the key to promoting the implementation of the national database? The CEO of FPT IS has affirmed that the joint efforts of the Government, provinces/cities, and enterprises under the PPP model will be the answer.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha has also shared the same viewpoint and emphasizes: “Data is an endless resource that promotes human creativity and intelligence. However, to exploit data, it is necessary for not only the Government but also state agencies and enterprises to get involved. Only enterprises and scientists can contribute the best to building policies on data and digital economy since they are insiders and are highly aware of struggles or trends”.

In addition, Mr. Minh has also cited the World Bank’s PPP Reference Guide report to demonstrate the effectiveness of PPP projects. The data of the report shows that the PPP model helps optimize costs, resources, and shorten project implementation period.

The CEO of FPT IS affirms that the PPP model will help boost the exploitation of digital data sources.

Besides, many typical success stories in the world following the PPP model are becoming a source of inspiration for countries to research and learn from. For example, in Estonia, instead of going all the way on its own, the Government has partnered with 8 private companies and commercial banks to deploy the X-road platform to build shared databases, providing 3,000 online public services for 52,000 organizations across the country.

The other example is Singapore where the PPP model has become a guiding principle for promoting the digital economy. Typically, CODEX is a shared platform between the state sector and the private sector, aiming to develop digital services in a better, faster and more cost-effective way. In 2022, such PPP model generated 60 million USD in economic values. Looking at the figure of 60 million USD on a population of 5.6 million of Singapore, this is not a small one.

Private enterprises are ready to get involved in implementing the national databases

Delivering the presentation themed “PPP model in building and exploiting digital data” in the opening session, Mr. Minh has made practical proposals in creating conditions for digital tech enterprises such as FPT IS to assist both the public and private sectors in a more effective way in completing the database.

The first one is to build a public service architecture that separates services provided by the government and private enterprises. The second one is to establish a National Agency dedicated to PPP for the IT sector. Finally, the third one is to implement a pilot mechanism that allows enterprises to provide a number of services based on the national databases to address socio-economic development.

Mr. Nguyen Hoang Minh makes three proposals to promote the implementation of the national databases.

As one of the pioneering tech firms in digital transformation in Vietnam, over the past 30 years, FPT Corporation in general and FPT IS in particular have been accompanying the Government and local authorities to deploy tech solutions in more than 25 provinces/cities such as Bac Giang, Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Giang, Lao Cai…

One of the typical examples is the project to build a shared data warehouse in Ho Chi Minh city, which helps the city automate the data collection and handling process as well as the reporting system, integrate and constantly update 60 databases, of which 40 databases are regularly shared between different agencies. Besides, reports on the health of enterprises in Ho Chi Minh city have now been updated on a regular basis (once per week).

Meanwhile in Lao Cai, FPT IS has built a digital strategy for the province, conducted investigation to clearly define data that the local authority needs to build, formed shared databases based on inheritance, synchronization with the national databases that have been deployed, and identified information groups that need to be formed. Speaking of the effectiveness of the project, the local leaders believe that the digital strategy has helped the province build and exploit a standard data warehouse integrated and shared on the LGSP system. This has made significant contributions to the process of analyzing, forecasting, and orienting the development of the digital transformation program of the province.

“With extensive tech capacity in the data sector as well as experience in understanding digital transformation problems in many provinces/cities across the country, FPT IS is committed to accompanying the Government and provinces/cities to promote the implementation of the databases according to the criteria of “Accurate – Sufficient – Clean – Live”, affirmed Mr. Minh.

Also at the exhibition area of Viet Nam – Asia DX Summit 2023, FPT IS has presented a series of typical solutions under the “Made by FPT IS” digital transformation ecosystem targeting all the three pillars of Digital government, Digital economy, and Digital society, such as the Anti-fraud solution for digital identity verification – FPT.IDCheck, the Chip-based ID card reader – FPT.IDReader, and the Robotic process automation solution – akaBot.