To mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Vietnam Economic News' Hoa Le spoke with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Information Technology Department director Nguyen Huu Chinh about the use of IT in the ministry in recent years.
What has IT contributed to natural resources and environmental development?
IT has tight relations with all socioeconomic fields and business development, and plays an important role in promoting the natural resources and environmental sector. IT is the most useful tool to manage survey statistics on land, water, minerals, environment, metrology, meteorology, cartography and more. IT helps us to produce accurate statistics on natural resources in different geographical positions.
In the last 10 years, the sector has seen rapid development in IT application. Many regulations and documents on IT application and management have been issued. A number of important projects promoting IT application have been implemented to enhance efficiency of IT application from the governmental level to the local level.
Up to now, the sector has obtained successes in IT application, contributing to administrative reform, meeting demand of governmental management, people and businesses. Workers from the local level to the central level have been equipped with IT application skills. They are fluent in applying IT to deal with their work. In addition, results of IT research projects have been applied to the reality, meeting demand of governmental management such as organizing online meetings with people and departments to collect suggestions of government policies.
The most typical is an e-library of the natural resources and environmental sector which provides people with up to date information. We are studying to providing information with computer cloud technology. The database of natural resources and the environment has been improved. Information network has been standardized to meet demand of the reality.
At present, the natural resources and environmental sector is trying to build an electronic government based on IT application. How do you assess e-government development?
Vietnam has seen a rapid development of e-government with the number of computers used at offices and number of workers equipped with IT skills strongly increasing. Up to now, 70 percent of departments have websites, 80 percent of administrative departments use computers and 60 percent of provincial departments use LAN (local area network). Vietnam has now more than 94,000 online public services which allow people to download information, register and pay online. This is a favorable condition to enhance IT application in governmental offices.
To the natural resources and environmental sector, we have issued synchronized policy system and directions on IT application development. We have taken a number of methods to perfect the legal corridor, build a five year plan or annual plans on IT development and implement large projects at national level. The national steering committee of IT application under the management of the Ministry of Information and Communications assessed that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is among leading ministries in enhancing IT application, haing professional workers responsible for IT application and contributing to the cause of IT application development among other ministries.
Despite meeting demand of managing and providing information of natural resources and the environment, recently applied software has not meet the ministry's expectation because IT system has not comprehensively applied on a large scale. The ministry is striving for 50-70 equipment serving measuring, surveying and supervising to use digital and automation technology. Automation technology will be also used in updating information. The ministry will enhance applying IT in governmental management.
Could you share the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment’s plans to build e-government in the coming time?
To build an e-government, the ministry has issued some methods to enhance IT application such as building and perfecting policies, improving information infrastructure, applying IT in internal management, providing online public services to meet people and businesses' demand and improving worker's capacity of dealing with administrative procedures through online services. According to the plan, 80 percent of documents of the ministry will be exchanged through the internet with others ministries and departments and 100 percent of workers will use electronic mails to deal with public services such as registering or issuing certificates. A synchronized IT system will be applied by the ministry until 2015.
What will the Information Technology Department do to promote natural resources and environmental development as it is responsible for managing IT application in this sector?
In the coming time, the department and the natural resources and environmental sector will focus on implementing the resolution issued at the 11th National Communist Party Committee Congress and the 2011-2015 five year economic development plan.
The department will enhance perfecting policy and legal system on IT application in natural resources and environment. Studies and initiatives in IT application will be encouraged. In addition, we will promote training human resources and implementing important projects to promote IT application. The campaign of renewing IT application in departments under our management will be maintained. Internal resources will be effectively exploited. Workers' living standards will be improved./.
