Digital transformation in Party affairs in Ho Chi Minh City is producing tangible changes at the grassroots level as many Party administrative procedures are now handled electronically, helping reduce paperwork and shorten processing times.
However, to ensure the transition delivers meaningful results, the city says it must continue standardizing data, upgrading technical infrastructure, improving the digital skills of Party officials and members, and gradually modernizing the Party's leadership and management methods.
Before monthly meetings, members of the Party branch in Neighborhood 7, Long Truong Ward, now transfer their Party membership dues directly into the bank account of the Party branch. As a result, meetings can begin immediately with substantive discussions.
Secretary of the Party branch Nguyen Ngoc Van said that in the past, they had to collect membership dues in cash during every meeting, record payments, verify member lists, and follow up with members who were absent or exempt from meetings. Managing cash was both time-consuming and prone to errors.
Now that members pay electronically, the Party branch can devote more time to key meeting topics.
Many Party branch secretaries also said meeting materials are now distributed in advance through the Electronic Party Member Handbook application, allowing members to review documents beforehand. Meeting time is therefore focused more on self-assessment, discussion, thematic activities, and implementing assigned tasks, rather than reading resolutions from higher-level Party organizations line by line.
Building on these early improvements, digital transformation is gradually expanding to other Party administrative procedures.
To date, procedures covering permanent Party membership recognization, temporary Party membership transfers, and obtaining evaluations from Party organizations in members' places of residence are all conducted electronically.
Electronic residential evaluations are expected to significantly reduce the workload of neighborhood Party committees and Ward Party committees during annual performance evaluations.
According to Nguyen Thi Minh Hong, head of the Party Building Committee of Thu Duc Ward, the Ward Party organization has more than 3,360 members, including nearly 2,500 working Party members who maintain ties with their residential Party organizations.
Since introducing four electronic Party administrative procedures, the ward has completed 1,021 evaluations of working Party members and processed 287 Party membership transfer cases.
The electronic system not only reduces travel time for Party members but also enables Party committees to receive, process, and monitor applications more efficiently.
By the end of June 2026, Ho Chi Minh City had cleaned and standardized 99 percent of its Party membership database, with nearly 394,000 members managed through the Party Member Database 4.0 system.
The city has also invested in technical infrastructure and information security, digitally signed 842 documents through end-to-end electronic processes, achieved more than 92 percent adoption of the Electronic Party Member Handbook, enabled more than 90 percent of Party branches to conduct meetings through the digital system, and recorded more than 657,000 electronic records, most of them related to Party membership dues.
Local authorities standardize data
Local authorities are implementing the four electronic Party administrative procedures in a coordinated way, with data standardization identified as a critical step.
Officials say digital platforms can only function effectively for administration and public services if the underlying data are accurate, complete, clean, and continuously updated.
Le Tien Si, head of the Party Building Committee of Saigon Ward, said that after the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee issued its implementation plan, the ward organized three rounds of training for all subordinate Party organizations, worked with banks to open free accounts for Party branches, established a technical support hotline, and reviewed demand for digital signatures among grassroots Party committees.
In Ben Thanh Ward, Tran Do Nam Long, head of the Party Building Committee, said the ward established a "Party Member Support Desk" and mobilized the Youth Union's "Digital Team" to provide direct assistance to Party branches during implementation.
To date, all 86 Party organizations under the ward have adopted electronic Party membership dues collection, while other digital administrative procedures are also being widely implemented.
Meanwhile, in Phuoc Hai Commune, all Party branches now conduct meetings and submit meeting quality assessment reports through the digital system, while all eligible Party members have installed and use the Electronic Party Member Handbook.
Commune Party Secretary Vo Duc Tai said comprehensive use of digital platforms has improved management efficiency while fostering more scientific, timely, and transparent working practices within Party organizations.
Practical implementation has also highlighted areas that still require improvement.
According to Le Tien Si, head of the Party Building Committee of Saigon Ward, Party member records continue to be maintained simultaneously in paper and electronic formats. As a result, officials handling Party membership transfers must process both systems at the same time, increasing their workload.
He said regulations governing the management, storage, and transfer of Party records should be synchronized with digital platforms as soon as possible to simplify administrative procedures for both local Party organizations and Party members.
Pham Thanh Kien, head of the Organization Commission of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, said the city considers data to be the "core asset" of the Party's organizational system.
Accordingly, the city has launched a campaign to clean and standardize Party organization and Party member data across Ho Chi Minh City while establishing working groups to directly assist grassroots organizations and promptly resolve implementation issues.
The city also plans to further expand the use of the Party Operational Management System, the Electronic Party Member Handbook, paperless meetings, and the four electronic Party administrative procedures.
Officials said the initial results demonstrate the value of digital transformation in Party affairs. As data becomes standardized, procedures are unified, and officials become more proficient in digital technologies, these platforms are expected to play an increasingly effective role in Party building and administration.
