Hanoi (VNA) - Innovation and creation are strategic and decisivefactors for Vietnam's success of digital economic transformation.

That was the message from Deputy Minister of Information and Communications PhamHong Hai at Internet Day 2019.

He was speaking as the Vietnam Internet Association marked Internet Day 2019with a conference titled “Internet Vietnam: Innovation for digitaltransformation” in Hanoi on December 11.

The deputy minister said the country had been witnessing the birth of many techbusinesses operating in a number of fields with new business models this year.

This clearly affirmed the determination of many businesses in becoming digitalservice providers and pioneering in the creation of digital society, he said.

This year also marked an important milestone in the research, application anddevelopment of 5G technology in Vietnam, Hai emphasised.

The Ministry of Information and Communications has licensed 5G trials for threemajor telecommunication businesses.

This will create an important infrastructure for the development of the digitaleconomy and better meet the demand of increasing connectivity speed and scale.

The Prime Minister also assigned the Ministry of Information and Communicationsto take responsibility in researching, developing and submitting to theGovernment the national digital transformation plan.

The project would be an overall plan to move towards a comprehensive digitaleconomy and society by 2030.

One of the tasks and solutions determined in the draft of the plan was tocreate an environment for developing digital products, digital services, andnew business models; improving the capacity of innovation and developingdigital businesses.

A report on the digital economy in Southeast Asia showed that Vietnam's digitaleconomy has grown at 40 percent a year, leading the region.

The country's global innovation index is ranked in 42nd place among 129countries.

With a population of more than 96 million people and more than 60 millionpeople using Internet services, Vietnamese users spend an average of more thansix hours a day online.

About 94 percent of internet users in the country use the internet daily.

“Looking at statistics, it can be seen that the majority of our economic andsocial activities take place online,” said the deputy minister of informationand communications.

The internet had penetrated into all aspects of society; changed socialawareness; created more innovative and effective business models; andaccelerated the process of sustainable growth, he added.

Within the framework of the conference, the Vietnam cloud computing and datacentre club was launched to promote the market of cloud computing services andthe development of data centres nationwide./.