Vietnam to launch national public services portal on December 9

The national public services portal is set to launch on December 12 under the chair of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, according to Mai Tien Dung, minister of the Government Office.

Overview of the press conference. Source: VGP.

This would mark an important step to realize the government’s objective of taking the people and enterprises as center of its services, Dung said at a press conference on December 7.

Ngo Hai Phan, head of the Government Office’s Administrative Procedure Control Agency, said the portal plays an important part in the development of e-government, serving as a platform to connect the government with the people and enterprises.

The portal consists of six components, including the national database on administrative procedures and frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to the procedures; one-time login and verification system to connect with respective public services portal of other ministries; online payment system; opinion section for citizens and enterprises; integrating online public services of ministries/provinces; and online supporting services.

The main benefit of the portal is to ensure full transparent of administrative procedures, enabling individuals and organizations to track the progress of processing public services and responsibilities of government agencies.

By logging into the website https://dichvucong.gov.vn through a single account, citizen and enterprise could access all online public services portals provided by ministries and provinces from anywhere and at anytime.

The use of the portal is estimated to save VND4.22 trillion (US$181.54 million) per year for state budget. The figure would continue to rise with more online public services integrated into the portal.

According to Hai, with a shared platform and database, the portal would reduce the needs for each ministry, province and city to invest in their own public services portals, enhancing the efficiency in state management and supervision.

At the time of launching, the portal would provide five public services at 63 provinces/cities, including issuance of driver licenses, announcing promotional activities; reissuing health insurance cards, provision of electricity services to citizens, enterprises and payment for electricity bills.

In the first quarter of 2020, ministries and provinces are expected to integrate 15 additional public services to the portal in fields of taxes payment, customs, business registration, health, labor, birth registration, among others.