Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW 2019 some policies to actively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

 RESOLUTION

OF THE POLITBURO

on a number of guidelines and policies to actively participate in

the Fourth Industrial Revolution

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I- THE SITUATION AND CAUSES

The Fourth Industrial Revolution not only opens many opportunities but also poses challenges for each nation, organization and individual while strongly affecting all sectors of our economy and society. Over the past time, our Party and State have directed agencies and units at all levels to step up scientific and technological application and development as well as to enhance the creativity and improve the capacity to research, access and actively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Prime Minister issued a directive on improving the capacity to access the Fourth Industrial Revolution and approved the Scheme to promote shared economic model. On that basis, ministries, branches and local authorities have built and implemented a number of policies to promote the development of information technology, electronics and telecommunications industries. Telecommunication infrastructure is synchronously developed. The digital economy has been formed and developing rapidly, becoming an increasingly important part of the economy. Digital technologies have been applied in industry, agriculture and services. There have been more and more new and cross-border business and service forms based on digital technology and the Internet, thus creating numerous job opportunities, income and utilities, and improving the living standards of the people. The development of e-government towards the digital government has been drastically implemented, initially achieving many positive results.

However, the activeness of the participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution of our country remains low. Institutions and policies still include limitations and shortcomings. The structure and quality of human resources have not met the requirements. Science, technology and innovation have not considered dynamics for socio-economic development. The national innovation system has been newly established, not yet synchronized and effectively operated. The process of national digitalization remains slow and lack the sense of initiative due to the limitations in the necessary infrastructure. Various enterprises remain passive and lack the ability to access, apply and develop modern technology. The digital economy remains small-scaled. The fight against crimes and the protection of cyber security face with numerous difficulties.

There are subjective and objective causes leading to the abovementioned limitations, in which subjective causes accounted for the most. The awareness of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the political and social system is still limited, inadequate and inconsistent. The ability of analyzing and forecasting strategies on scientific and technological development trends affecting the socio-economic life of the country is also limited. The way of thinking in planning and organizing the implementation of institutions in accordance with the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution remains old-fashioned and is slowly renewed. The State governance is still inadequate and not in line with the real situation. The coordination among the ministries, agencies, branches and between the Central Government and the localities remains not close while many difficulties and obstacles are slowly solved.

II- DIRECTIONS AND OBJECTIVES

1. Directions

- Active participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution is an indispensable requirement and a urgent and long-term particularly important strategic task of both the political system and the entire society, which shall be closely linked to the process of extensive international integration while sufficient and proper acknowledgement of the contents and nature of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is required in order to strongly innovate the ways of thinking and action, which shall be considered a breakthrough with appropriate steps and roadmaps as well as an opportunity for Vietnam to make a take-off in socio-economic development.

- The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings both opportunities and challenges. Therefore, we shall timely and effectively take advantage of the opportunities to improve labor productivity, economic competitiveness and social management efficiency by researching, transferring and comprehensively applying advanced achievements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to all socio-economic fields, especially the key ones with potentials and advantages, thus creating dynamics to catch up, move alongside and even advance the growth of other countries in the region and the world. We shall also proactively prevent and restrict the negative impacts in line with ensuring national defense, security and safety, social justice and sustainability of the country s development process.

- The Fourth Industrial Revolution requires innovative ways of thinking in economic management and social management as well as building and perfecting appropriate institutions. It is necessary to have open and creative approaches, examine the new practical issues, create all favorable conditions for innovation, while eliminating the signs of indifference, uncertainty and passiveness, but avoiding the subjectifies, impatience and voluntarism.

- We shall optimize all resources in line with ensuring sufficient resources for proactive participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which internal resources play a decisive, strategic, long-term and basic role while external resources are important and breakthrough-making, thus ensuring the Party s leadership and the State governance, promoting the synergy of the whole society.

2. Objectives

Overall objectives: Effectively taking advantage of the opportunities brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution to accelerate the process of renewing the growth model and restructuring the economy in association with the implementation of strategic breakthroughs and the modernization of the country; strongly developing the digital economy; rapidly and sustainably developing on the basis of scientific - technological innovation and high-quality human resources; improving the living standards and welfare of the people; firmly protecting national defense and security as well as the ecological environment. 

Some specific objectives towards 2025: Maintaining the ranking of Global Innovation Index (GII) among the top 3 ASEAN countries. Updating the digital infrastructure to the advanced level compared to ASEAN countries and ensuring that Broadband Internet covers 100% of the communes. Making the digital economy account for about 20% of GDP and increasing the average labor productivity by over 7% per year. Basically, completing the digitalization among Party organizations and State agencies, Fatherland Front at all levels and socio-political organizations. Being ranked by the United Nations among the top 4 ASEAN countries in term of developing e-government. Building at least 3 smart cities in 3 key economic zones in the North, the South and the Central. 

Some specific objectives towards 2030: Maintaining the ranking of the Global Innovation Index (GII) among the 40 leading countries in the world. Ensuring that 5G mobile network covers the whole country and that all citizens have access to broadband Internet with low cost. Making the digital economy account for over 30% of GDP and increasing the average labor productivity by 7.5% per year. Completing the construction of the e-government. Building a series of smart cities in the key economic zones in the North, the South and the Central; gradually connecting them to the regional and global smart urban network. 

3. Vision towards 2045: MakingVietnam become one of the smart production and service centers as well as one of the leading start-up and innovation centers in the Asia; having high labor productivity and being capable of mastering and applying modern technologies to all socio-economic  fields as well as in protecting the environment, national defense and security. 

III- SOME MAJOR GUIDELINES AND POLICIES TO ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE IN THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

1. Renewing the ways of thinking, consolidating the acknowledgements, enhancing the Party’s leadership and the State s governance, promoting the engagement of the Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations 

- Raising the awareness of the Party committees and authorities about the urgent need to actively and effectively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution as well as to consider it a key task. Attaching the objectives and tasks of participating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution to objectives and tasks of socio-economic development, environmental protection, defense and security assurance at all levels.

- Identifying that the core contents of the policies to actively participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution of our country are promoting the development of science, technology and innovation in all industries, sectors and strengthening the national digitalization, with a focus on digital economy development as well as smart city, e-government and digital government building.

- The State shall give priority to transferring and strongly applying new technologies in industries and fields as well as be responsible for promoting scientific and technological research, creating a favorable environment and providing focused and purposeful assistance to the citizens and businesses, which are the direct participants in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

- Promoting the effective participation of the Fatherland Front, socio-political organizations and those affected during planning and implementing the policies related to Fourth Industrial Revolution. Building a cooperation mechanism between the State, businesses and their associations in formulating and implementing the policies.

2. Perfecting institutions to facilitate proactive participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the process of national digitalization

- Improving the laws, particularly the laws on enterprises, creative start-ups, intellectual property, trade, investment and business, to create favorable conditions for the process of national digitalization and development of new products, services, economic models based on digital technologies, the Internet and the cyberspace; while promptly preventing negative impacts on both economy and society, ensuring national defense, security, social order and safety in cyberspace. Adding a number of new business lines eligible for investment incentives to promote the participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Making mechanisms for State-owned enterprises to make investments in technological research and development, venture capital, and investment in creative start-ups.

- Establishing a management mechanism in line with the digital business environment, creating favorable conditions for innovation. Issuing a controlled institutional framework for testing newly-invented technologies, products, services and business models during the Fourth Industrial Revolution as soon as possible. Specifying the scope of space and time of testing. Researching and building testing zones for technology enterprises in accordance with the world s advanced models. Identifying, recognizing and building a system of standards and regulations for new products, technologies and business models.

- Actively participating in regional and global legal frameworks to develop the digital economy. Improving the laws and policies on data and date management, facilitating the creation, connection, sharing and exploitation of data to ensure domestic network safety and security, proceeding to connect with the ASEAN region and the world. Building a legal framework for national digital identification and authentication while developing a national digital identity framework.

- Improving financial policies to encourage and mobilize all social resources to invest in scientific research, technological development and application, and innovation. Amending regulations on investment in order to create favorable conditions for attracting capital, buying shares, merger and acquisition of technology enterprises as well as attracting foreign investors to contribute capital to innovative start-ups.

- Improving the law provisions on intellectual property, effectively protecting and rationally exploiting intellectual properties created by Vietnamese citizens, encouraging the commercialization and transfer of intellectual property rights, especially Vietnam-based inventions, in compliance with domestic laws and assurance of national security interests. Multinational companies are encouraged to establish research and development facilities in Vietnam.

- Improving the laws and policies on finance - monetary, electronic payment, tax administration and cross-border services in line with the development of the digital economy. Improving the policies on public production and procurement of Vietnam-produced digital products.

- Issuing policies to restrict the negative impacts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Creating a legal framework for the deployment of new labor and employment models based on digital Technologies, improving the social security policies in line with the Fourth Industrial Revolution and promptly settling the difficulties in social development. Promoting the participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the aim of addressing environmental pollution, climate change and sea level rise.

- Developing and implementing the National Strategy on development of technology enterprises, giving priority to developing digital and high-tech enterprises to design, invent and manufacture their products in Vietnam.

- Developing and completing the legal framework for sustainable smart city development; the system of national standards and regulations; the system of data infrastructure and the system of criteria to evaluate the performance of smart cities. Clearly defining the roadmap and select cities to pilot the smart city models; allowing the pilot implementation of a number of specific mechanisms during the pilot implementation of smart city development to ensure the effectiveness and suitability in line with practical conditions.

3. Policies on essential infrastructure development

- Deploying high quality broadband nationwide. Encouraging qualified private enterprises to participate in the construction of telecommunications and other infrastructure for national digitalization.

- Building and developing synchronously the national data infrastructure. Building a system of national, regional and local data centers which shall be connected and synchronized with each other. Developing reliable and stable data systems of the State and enterprises. Investing in equipment systems for public data collection, storage, processing and protection. 

- Planning the construction of synchronous national digital payment infrastructure while effectively using and exploiting telecommunications network infrastructure to deploy low-cost payment services for the people. Completing mechanisms and policies to strongly promote non-cash payments. Encouraging Vietnamese businesses to build digital payment systems. Managing and strictly controlling cross-border online payment.

- Upgrading technical infrastructure to ensure network safety and security. Developing and effectively implementing Resolution No. 30-NQ/TW dated July 25, 2018 of the Politburo on the National Cyber-Security Strategy.

- Synchronously upgrading and modernizing the infrastructure of important and essential sectors to meet the technological application requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, especially energy and transport infrastructure, while firmly protecting national energy security.

4. Policies on developing and building the national innovation capacity

- Comprehensively restructuring the system of public scientific and technological research institutes. Building and developing national innovation and creativity centers with a focus on the core technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Improving the efficiency of public investment in scientific and technological research activitiesbyapplying new management models and the world s best practices.

- Applying special and breakthrough-making mechanisms and policies to innovation and creativity centers. Developing a national innovation system in which businesses, universities and research institutes play a center role. Encouraging domestic and foreign universities, enterprises and organizations to establish innovation centers in Vietnam.

- Issuing systematic national standards and regulations serving as a basis for the application and development of core technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in production and living. Synchronously and promptly creating legal frameworks and policies to deploy and develop new technologies. Developing and implementing programs that support businesses in research and application of technologies and conducting digitalization, thus improving productivity, quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy.

- Perfecting models, mechanisms and policies to strongly accelerate the development of hi-tech parks. Upon the development of the existing hi-tech parks of Hoa Lac (Hanoi), Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City, we shall develop creative urban centers meeting international standards. Promoting the development of creative start-up ecosystems, accelerating the establishment of national creative start-up centers in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City in the near future.

5. Policies on human resource development

- Reviewing the overall education and training program and innovating its contents to enhance the accessibility, creative thinking and adaptability to the technological environment that is constantly changing and developing, introducing digital and basic foreign language skills into educational curriculum. Innovating teaching and learning approaches based by applying digital technologies, taking the assessment of enterprises as a measure for the training quality of universities in the field of information technology. Making conditions for new models of education and training based on digital platforms to develop.

- Having incentive mechanisms and preferential polices for technology organizations, individuals and enterprises directly participating in education, training and manufacturing in the digital economy. Building a number of excellent technology education and training centers in the form of public-private partnership. Improving mechanisms and policies to encourage, attract and use talented and high-quality human resources.    

- Promoting vocational training and providing skills for job transformation. The State shall have policies to support employees when participating in retraining and training to improve their professional skills and job transformation skills.

- Establishing an open learning network for Vietnamese people. Following the roadmap of universalizing digital skills and network safety and security protection skills for the people to meet the basic standards. Promoting dissemination of information, raising public awareness and building digitalized culture within the community.

6. Development policies for priority industries and technologies

- Paying attention to developing priority industries with high readiness such as information technology, electronics and telecommunications; network safety and security; intelligent manufacturing industry; finance - banking; ecommerce; digital agriculture; digital tourism; digital culture; healthcare; education and training.

- Prioritizing resources for implementing a number of national key research programs on priority technologies, with a focus on information and communication technology, mechatronics, new technologies in the field of energy, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and biomedical electronics.

- The State shall implement the policies to support priority industries and technologies, mainly through renovating and perfecting institutions, creating a favorable business environment; supporting infrastructure investment; developing human resources; promoting scientific and technological development; making public procurements.

7. Policies on international integration

- Expanding and deepening the cooperation on science and technology with partners, especially strategic partners with advanced scientific and technological qualifications, leading the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Proactively participating in global innovation network.

- Promoting the attraction and efficient use of resources from foreign and international partners for research, application, innovation, creative start-up and technology transfer.

- Completing laws and policies on foreign direct investment towards raising technology standards, encouraging joint ventures and strengthening technology transfer and connectivity between domestic enterprises and FDI enterprises; strictly managing the operations of enterprises based on their transnational services in order to ensure a domestic fair business environment. Improving the law provisions on foreign venture capital.

8. Policies on promoting digitalization in Party organizations. State agencies, the Fatherland Front at all levels and socio-political organizations

- Playing a pioneer role in strongly implementing digitalization in the Party’s agencies, the National Assembly, the Government, the Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations to ensure uniformity, interconnection and synchronization.

- Building a digital database of the Government and authorities at all levels, creating conditions for all citizens to update necessary information on the operation of the Government. Investing in building infrastructure to collect and manage data and transactions on the Internet platform in the State agencies.

- Paying attention to building a contingent of officials, civil servants and public employees meeting the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution; standardizing and strengthening the capacity of the contingent of state management officials at all levels. Clearly defining the functions, tasks and coordination mechanisms among State management agencies in the implementation of national digitalization. Completing administrative procedures in accordance with the activities of the Government to minimize direct transactions.

IV - IMPLEMENTATION ORGANIZATION

1. The Party Committees and Commissions at all levels shall thoroughly grasp the Resolution to all officials and Party members as well as develop programs and plans to implement the Resolution. 

2. The National Assembly Party Committee shall lead the study, amendment, supplementation and finalization of laws to facilitate participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution under the Resolution; promulgate a number of controlled testing mechanisms to encourage the development of new products, services and business models of the digital economy. 

3. The Government’s Party Committee shall lead the elaboration and implementation of the National Strategy on the Fourth Industrial Revolution; promulgate and implement a Scheme on national digitalization and other schemes, programs and plans for participation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution; direct the formulation and submit the mechanisms and policies on controlled testing of new products and business models to competent authorities for promulgation. Prioritizing the sufficient allocation of resources to perform the tasks stated in the Resolution. 

4. The Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations shall develop programs and plans to supervise the implementation of the Resolution. 

5. The Central Commission for Propaganda and Training shall assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the Party Central Committee s Economic Commission and concerned agencies in guiding the thorough implementation of the Resolution. 

6. The Party Central Committee s Economic Commission shall assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the concerned agencies in regularly monitoring, supervising, inspecting and urging the implementation of the Resolution; periodically reviewing the implementation and reporting the results to the Politburo and the Secretariat.