Digital economy development in Thailand in 2021-2030 period and lessons for Vietnam
- QTH-3Q19 Nguyen Thi Nhung
- Feb 20, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 28, 2022
The view of Vietnam's Financial Strategy for the period of 2021 - 2030 is that national financial policy must play a pioneering role in mobilizing, liberating, allocating, and fully making use of domestic and foreign resources, improving growth quality on the basis of the development of the human resource, science, and technology, innovation associated with digital transformation which contributes to orienting and leading social resources to prioritized socio-economic development goals in each period. The digital economy is identified as one of the indispensable factors and plays an important role in economic growth, creating a breakthrough for Vietnam in the 2021-2030 period. With its own specific characteristics in terms of institutions, economic situation, education level, awareness, and many other factors, each country will have different approaches to developing the digital economy. This article records the highlights in the development of the digital economy in Thailand over the past time, thereby offering some suggestions or lessons for the development of the digital economy in Vietnam.
Besides the vision of "Thailand 4.0", the Thai Government launched the "Digital Thailand Policy" with the ambition of building a digital economy and society, helping Thailand to become a "digital leader". In particular, Thailand mainly focuses on increasing the use of digital technology in all socio-economic activities, such as the development of infrastructure, data, human resources, technical resources, and others to lead the country to prosperity, stability, and sustainability.
In addition to enact policies, plans, and strategies to realize “Thailand 4.0” and “Digital Thailand”, the Thai Government has also built a governance structure, established management (MDES). Its main task is to develop and accelerate the growth of Thailand's digital economy and attract digital businesses, as well as develop and manage the Thai telecommunications network, regulating and promoting the use of infrastructure and innovation for socio-economic development. Thailand focuses on investment and building an asynchronous digital platform. This is the first phase of the "Digital Thailand Policy" and is also an important prerequisite for the development of the digital economy of each country. However, for Thailand, it is not simply investment and construction of information technology infrastructure, but a comprehensive digitalization process in the fields of infrastructure, economy, and society.
Regarding infrastructure, Thailand advocates deploying broadly to every village, providing 10,000 free wifi spots, doubling international bandwidth. Socially, Thailand is developing a personal health data (PHR) system to connect with hospitals across the country, benefiting at least 1 million people. Currently, the Thai government has amassed a huge data collection on the first 3 years of an infant's life and the environment in which the child grows up such as the level of hygiene, living environment, and brain development, as well as parents' behavior and livelihoods, to make predictions about children's health and development. This helps Thailand to have appropriate policies to build a healthy and quality young generation, reducing unnecessary medical costs. Regarding the Government, Thailand has developed an e-Government Law with digital government plans/strategies, service standards, data protection plans, data security, and monitoring work plans; establishing and upgrading government infrastructure, shared data centers, Government cloud technology (G-Cloud), and government mail system (MailGoThai); build smart services with electronic documents to better serve businesses and people.
Despite economic difficulties during the epidemic period, according to the e-commerce report in Southeast Asia 2020 released by Google, Temasek and Bain, Thailand will become an internet economy with a total value of about approx. $53 billion by 2025, the second largest in the ASEAN region after Indonesia. According to this report, in 2020, Thailand's e-commerce sector will have explosive growth with an increase of 81% in revenue, reaching $9 billion. This is a large number, evidence of the ability to strongly develop the digital economy in this country.
As the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a strong impact on the world, the digital economy has made many practical contributions to the integration of Vietnamese businesses into the global technology chain, making an increased contribution to Vietnam's economy in the coming time, as well as helping the Government's management is most favorable. However, for the digital economy to develop sustainably, it is necessary to have synchronous support solutions and efforts from many sides. From the experience of developing the digital economy in Thailand, the following lessons can be drawn:
First, from Thailand's experience in recognizing and allocating resources to the digital economy, it is necessary to define the digital economy not only as promoting the development of information technology but also as a comprehensive digitalization of all areas of life, shifting the focus from building digital infrastructure to applying digital technologies to improve value, quality and socio-economic development. Therefore, there should be a unified awareness of the position and role of the digital economy in policy-making and development, especially in government agencies. So that, there is precise positioning and orientation, the right level of the digital economy agenda, as well as the reasonable and effective allocation of resources for implementation in practice.
Second, there must be a specialized agency in the digital economy (such as MDES) to ensure that the strategy is implemented effectively and has a focused resource, and assesses the effectiveness of each plan in strategic implementation.
Third, in the context of rapid innovation and technological change, in order to implement the above policy recommendations, it is necessary to regularly improve the capacity of government agencies. The government needs to have enough ability to understand changes in the international policy and technology landscape, as well as the implications for national digital economy agendas. Then, there are accurate measurements and assessments of the state of the national digital economy, as well as the capacity to issue and implement decisions and regulations quickly, flexibly, and effectively, meeting the urgent requirements of the digital economy.
Fourth, focus on training and developing information technology human resources. The information technology human resource training program should aim to accelerate the socialization of information technology education, especially updating the information technology training curriculum associated with new technology trends, such as artificial intelligence and robotic technology. Also, creating conditions for students to access this field as soon as possible, promoting training and practice links between schools and the business sector in the application of information technology; raising people's awareness of the needs and values of this profession in society.
Fifth, there are legal corridors to promote the digital economy, it is necessary to "legislate" the contents of the digital economy to ensure a solid and unified legal basis for the implementation of the digital economy agenda. In particular, in some cases, digital initiatives can lead to controversies and concerns about cybersecurity, user data security, personal information such as Thailand's e-ID system, so the development and promulgation of a synchronous legal system both facilitates the digitalization process in the socio-economic fields while protecting the legitimate rights and interests of people, businesses and the Government.
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