Le Quang Manh, deputy minister of Planning and Investment (MPI) made the statement at the Viet Nam CEO Summit, themed ‘The Age of AI and Vietnamese enterprises: implications from Havard Case Studies and World Business Ideas’, held in Ha Noi on Wednesday.

Manh pointed out four opinions of the Government in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), which AI is a key part of.

“The Government believes that this is an extremely important opportunity for Viet Nam. Taking advantages of Industry 4.0 would be the shortest road to make the country develop further. In the upcoming time, the Government will study and review to provide specific policies to take the opportunity,” he said.

Secondly, Viet Nam should have a positive view of technology and innovation while considering them both an opportunity and challenge to resolve the country’s issues.

“This is why Government and leaders have made efforts to create the best environment for innovation,” he added.

Lastly, this is also an opportunity for institutional reform and completing the socialist-oriented market economy as well as transformation to the digital economy. The Government is taking a leading role in the issue.

The deputy minister said the Government has expanded relations with other countries and leading technology centres and businesses, using policies to attract overseas Vietnamese who are living in countries with modern technologies to create opportunities for Viet Nam.

He affirmed that the key player in the “game” would be the business community.

He expected that by taking advantage of Indutry 4.0, the country could get out of the middle-income trap to step into a new era of development.

“With high dynamism and sensitivity to new market trends, the Vietnamese business community will certainly not miss this opportunity. Only taking advantage and realising this opportunity can overcome lags and narrow the gap with countries in the region and the world”.

A survey of Viet Nam Report on big Vietnamese businesses’ response to the age of digital, AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution showed 62.5 per cent of surveyed firms have been implementing step-by-step changes from one technology to others.

Big Data and cloud computing have been the first priorities for local companies in choosing technologies to invest in.

Big Vietnamese businesses expected that AI could help them reduce operation costs, increase productivity and create higher quality products and services which are individualised.

However, only 13.6 per cent of the surveyed firms said they have invested in AI.

Prof. Jason Furman from Harvard University and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers of former President Barack Obama said AI could create new jobs in technology.

He suggested that Viet Nam could study building and developing an AI government. The AI government is more transcendent than e-government by applying AI in supporting decision making for all functions of key public sectors.

He said Viet Nam has a lot of advantages to lead in the region thanks to its young population, innovation culture, open mindset and higher knowledge foundation.

In addition, information and technology in Viet Nam has strongly developed in the past few years, creating an IT infrastructure and internet network.

He said business leaders in the country should be pioneers in changing to take advantage of opportunities.

He suggested some solutions which were applied in the US such as private sector leading research and Government support for research of basic science.