The Prime Minister requested to increase the proportion of spending on core technology development

On April 22, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung chaired a working session with the Ministry of Science and Technology on implementing science, technology, innovation and digital transformation tasks. He highly appreciated the ministry’s efforts in advising and implementing Resolution 57, perfecting institutions and policy mechanisms; promote infrastructure and technology development; spreading science and technology, innovation, and digital transformation across industries, fields, and life.

However, the Prime Minister noted that there are still problems in the mechanism of mobilizing social resources, public-private cooperation, placing orders, assigning tasks, contracting expenses, and using funds. He believes that the link between research, application, training and the market is weak; Commercialization of research results, development of technology enterprises, innovative start-ups and science and technology markets have not met the requirements.

In addition, digital infrastructure, digital data, digital platforms, strategic technology and high-quality human resources are also bottlenecks. The formation of a data ecosystem, sharing and exploiting data to serve governance, administration and socio-economic development is not synchronous.

The head of the Government emphasized that in the coming time, it is necessary to prioritize resources and increase the proportion of spending on strategic technology, high technology, and core technology in the total budget expenditure for science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation. This is to fulfill the requirement of Resolution 57 to allocate at least 3% of total state budget expenditure to this field.

The Prime Minister requested to innovate management thinking, shifting the focus of business support policies from input to output-based support; Completely remove barriers, accept controlled risks, focus on management, finance, investment mechanisms and increase autonomy for science and technology units.

He emphasized the need to master core technology, prioritize acquiring, transferring and mastering foundation technologies, advanced technologies, strategic technologies and digital technologies; At the same time, manage and promote the development of digital assets and digital currencies in a healthy and effective direction.

The goals set include the proportion of the digital economy reaching 30% of GDP, the proportion of businesses with innovation activities reaching 40%, and the average growth of e-commerce sales by 23-25%.

The Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Science and Technology to submit and promulgate 3 decrees and 2 decisions of the Prime Minister guiding the Law on Digital Transformation and the Law on Artificial Intelligence in April. The Ministry must also review and complete the list of strategic technologies and strategic technology products in a streamlined direction, focusing on areas that are decisive for the country’s immediate and long-term development.

Government leaders direct ministries and branches to coordinate and immediately select a number of key strategic technology tasks associated with major national problems, deploy them according to a specific roadmap and measure the results. At the same time, establishing an interdisciplinary coordination working group and establishing a unified steering mechanism is necessary to effectively implement strategic technology development programs, strengthen links between businesses, schools and research facilities, and avoid wasting resources.

The Ministry of Science and Technology is assigned to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to complete and submit for promulgation regulations on criteria, order, procedures and content of using state budget for science, technology, innovation and digital transformation projects. In particular, the allocation mechanism must shift to ordering, assigning tasks according to output results, and at the same time establish a mechanism for accepting controlled risks in research.

In the second quarter, the Ministry of Science and Technology coordinated with the Central Policy and Strategy Committee to develop a Resolution on the country’s development model in the new period based on science, technology, innovation and digital transformation to submit to the 3rd Central Conference for consideration.

The Prime Minister also requested to drastically restructure 16 key national laboratories and promulgate a breakthrough mechanism for the Science and Technology Exchange.

According to the report, Vietnam has issued 11 strategic technology groups with 35 strategic technology products. By 2025, there will be 53 science and technology organizations reaching regional and international levels, 6 high-tech parks; The export proportion of high-tech products reached nearly 50%. Vietnam ranks 44/139 countries on the global innovation index, and its startup ecosystem ranks 55th in the world.

By the end of March 2026, 5G coverage rate will reach 91.9% of the population with more than 22.4 million subscribers; Mobile Internet speed ranks 14th in the world, fixed Internet ranks 9th; IPv6 infrastructure ranked 7th globally.

The number of digital technology businesses increased by 1,394. Export of digital technology products reached more than 45 billion USD, an increase of 32.2%; Total export turnover of digital technology products reached 172 billion USD; E-commerce scale reached 36 billion USD, 3 times higher than in 2020.

The total funding for science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation in 2026 approved by the National Assembly is 65,020 billion VND, including 30,720 billion VND in regular expenditures and 34,300 billion VND in development investment expenditures. To date, 92.27% of regular expenditures and 68.58% of investment expenditures have been allocated, the remainder is continuing to be reviewed for allocation.