The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh – head of the Government’s steering committee for S&T, innovation, digital transformation, and Project 06 highlighted significant positive developments in the national push for S&T, innovation, and digital transformation. Project 06 works on developing the application of population data, identification, and electronic authentication for the national digital transformation for the 2022-2025 period, with a vision to 2030.
Administrative procedure reform has been aggressively pursued, resulting in the cutting and simplification of 872 procedures and 118 business conditions.
The digital economy has shown considerable growth, with the export value of digital products estimated at US$78.1 billion, a 20.5-percent increase year-on-year. Cashless payment volumes surged by 45.4 percent, with values up 25.2 percent; reportedly, 70 percent of consumers in major cities now use cashless payments daily.
A VND500 trillion (approx. $20 billion) credit package for S&T, innovation, and strategic infrastructure is being actively deployed, while e-commerce is expanding rapidly at a rate of 22-25 percent.
Digital government initiatives have also been accelerated, including the effective operation of the new two-tier local government system. In the first half of 2025, 39.51 percent of all administrative procedures were handled entirely online. The National Public Service Portal has become a central gateway for citizens.
Numerous social and economic utilities have been widely and effectively rolled out, including the biometric verification of 116 million bank customer records (double the 2024 figure) and the use of biometric check-in for nearly 5,000 flights at Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat international airports.
In his speech at the meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that the Government has set a GDP growth target of 8.3-8.5 percent for 2025, emphasizing that this rapid growth must be sustainable. “S&T development, innovation, and digital transformation are crucial solutions to achieve this”, he said.
The Prime Minister affirmed that the Government would use increased revenue and budget savings to meet the requirement of allocating at least 3 percent of total budget expenditure to this strategic push.
Under the motto “Lean Apparatus – Connected Data – Smart Governance”, the Prime Minister directed leaders of all ministries, agencies, and localities to focus on building their own databases, ensuring the data is “correct, complete, clean, and updated”. He also demanded the urgent establishment of visual management tools and quantitative key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate progress of digital transformation processes nationwide.
The Prime Minister stressed the need to accelerate the review and perfection of the legal framework, identifying institutional reform as the “breakthrough of breakthroughs” that must lead the way for development. “S&T development and innovation are the key drivers for enhancing the economy’s productivity, quality, efficiency, and competitiveness”, he declared.
He tasked the Ministry of Home Affairs with several urgent human resource missions:
- By July, develop and submit criteria, management regulations, and recruitment processes for “chief engineers” and “chief architects” to lead strategic systems and breakthrough initiatives.
- By August, issue special policies to attract S&T and innovation talent from both home and abroad, with a specific goal of recruiting at least 100 top-tier experts to return and work in Vietnam.
Each ministry and locality was also instructed to appoint a chief IT engineer and a chief operations engineer to coordinate with the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and technological enterprises to build their own digital transformation architecture and strategy.
“Digital transformation is a strategic breakthrough task that will determine the effectiveness of our national governance and drive the development of our digital economy, digital society, and digital citizenry, ensuring no one is left behind.”
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh
Further directives included:
- The Ministry of Construction: To coordinate with the Ministry of Science and Technology as well as six major cities to approve smart city projects in July for implementation within 2025.
- The Ministry of Finance: To report on the digital economy’s value-added share of GDP.
- The Ministry of Science and Technology: To advise the Government on strategies to ensure the digital economy accounts for 20 percent of GDP by the end of 2025.
- The Ministry of Public Security: To accelerate tasks under Project 06, including the completion of 40 of 61 utilities on the VNeID platform. The ministry will also coordinate the simplification of 324 administrative procedures by leveraging data shared via VNeID and will implement a system to link e-prescriptions from hospitals to pharmacies for seamless integration on the VNeID app, set to pilot in August and launch officially in September.
