On June 14, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended the 2023 Industry 4.0 Summit and International Exhibition, organized by the Central Economic Commission.

Digital transformation has permeated all aspects of life.

Speaking at the Forum, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh shared: Recently, with the transformation to a new growth model based on productivity and innovation, reducing dependence on competitive advantages as well as natural resources or human resources, cheap labor, Vietnam's economy has achieved a new step of development with many achievements.

The policy of development based on science and technology, innovation, and the fourth industrial revolution has been affirmed by the Party and State in the Party Congress documents.

The Prime Minister affirmed: Digital transformation has penetrated all aspects of life. At that time, those who are behind and cannot catch up will fall behind, become obsolete, and even be eliminated, and this happens in both real and digital environments.

Referring to the development of artificial intelligence, the Prime Minister said that the positive aspects of artificial intelligence are not few, but it is also necessary to assess the negative impacts more clearly and specifically. On that basis, how to orient the development of artificial intelligence technology to suit the specific circumstances of people in the world today.

The Prime Minister emphasized that the 4.0 industrial revolution has an unprecedented scale and speed, changing the productive forces, promoting the transformation of industrialization and modernization to a new stage, intensive in knowledge, creative breakthroughs, opening up opportunities for us to catch up and surpass in some areas compared to the region and the world.

“Go with them but there must be breakthroughs to rise up,” the Prime Minister noted.

According to the Prime Minister, the 4.0 industrial revolution has a comprehensive and all-encompassing scope of impact, forming new production relations, new business models, promoting green transformation, sustainable development, environmental protection, and emission reduction...

However, the head of the Government believes that opportunities always come with challenges, but we must always be brave, never too optimistic about favorable conditions but also not pessimistic about difficulties and challenges that can come at any time.

“The problem is whether we can forecast, detect in time and respond flexibly, appropriately and effectively. That depends on management capacity at all levels and sectors, especially at strategic levels,” the Prime Minister noted.

The Head of Government emphasized that digital transformation must bring about real results and practical values ​​for socio-economic development.

Speaking at the forum, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung assessed: New knowledge creates new technology. New technology creates new industry and leads to industrialization. New industry creates new economy. New economy creates new society. New economy and new society lead to modernization.

Thus, industrialization and modernization are always associated with new knowledge and technology, that is, associated with new industrial revolutions.

Each country must follow its own path to industrialization and modernization. There is no model that has been successful in two or more countries. Vietnam's industrialization and modernization must follow the Vietnamese path, based on the cultural context, development level, regime, human qualities and Vietnamese problems.

According to Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, Vietnam must have its own unique perspective on industrialization and modernization in the context of the fourth industrial revolution.

“The fourth industrial revolution is 50% digital technology, the remaining 50% of technologies are based on digital technology for development. Therefore, many people consider the fourth industrial revolution as a digital technology revolution. Digital technology is suitable for Vietnamese people. Vietnam also has many excellent digital technology enterprises. That is Vietnam's advantage to accelerate industrialization and modernization,” Minister Nguyen Manh Hung shared.

The Minister of Information and Communications said: If we develop a basic knowledge platform to support each citizen, such as a virtual assistant, the power of 100 million Vietnamese people will be multiplied. Thus, the fourth industrial revolution is about empowering people, instead of replacing people. If understood in this sense, the fourth industrial revolution is a revolution about empowering all people, a revolution for all people. And our Vietnam, our regime is very strong in things that are revolutionary for all people.

Building strategic infrastructure

Emphasizing the importance of completing the country's infrastructure, the Prime Minister affirmed: The cause of industrialization and modernization of the country without developing strategic infrastructure cannot be called industrialization and modernization. Infrastructure is one of three strategic breakthroughs, infrastructure breakthroughs include hard infrastructure, soft infrastructure, especially transport infrastructure.

“Our country’s product prices are high compared to the world. Obviously, the transport infrastructure is limiting our development, making product prices high and making it difficult to compete in the world. Therefore, infrastructure breakthroughs are appropriate and especially necessary in the country’s industrialization and modernization period, including transport infrastructure, telecommunications, electricity and other strategic infrastructures,” said Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

Regarding the progress of transport infrastructure, the Prime Minister shared: We have implemented a series of expressway projects. The expressway projects along the North-South axis have basically been and are being implemented well. In the future, we will continue to start construction of inter-regional projects, such as the Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 3, the Hanoi Ring Road 4 project...

“Since the beginning of the term, we have put into use nearly 600km of expressway. We hope that at this speed, we will deploy a fast-track transport system, contributing to one of the three growth drivers of the country,” the Prime Minister expressed his hope and said that he has a policy to invest in the North-South high-speed railway project and is looking for a consulting unit and capital to implement it.

Regarding other infrastructure, the Prime Minister noted that there must be no "gaps" in telecommunications and electricity, especially in remote areas, border and island areas, and ethnic minority areas, determined not to leave anyone behind.

Vietnam has many favorable factors for accessing and benefiting from the Fourth Industrial Revolution. That is, it has a young, inquisitive, dynamic, and creative population; infrastructure for digital technology to develop rapidly; and increasingly perfect mechanisms and policies. Therefore, although we must pay attention to negative factors, this is truly an opportunity for Vietnam to realize its aspiration for prosperity and happiness.

The Prime Minister suggested that after this forum, all levels, sectors, localities, and the business community should make efforts to turn aspirations into concrete actions and actions to continue striving and achieving new steps to contribute to promoting the industrialization and modernization of our country. We have made efforts, so we should make more efforts, we have made efforts, we have made greater determination, we should identify key points to allocate resources and time to successfully achieve the set goals.

Increasing energy imports reduce self-sufficiency Increasing energy import requirements are a problem in the development of Vietnam's energy industry, as it reduces self-sufficiency in energy and increases dependence on other economies.