It is followed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Information and Communications, unchanged from the year earlier.
The rankings were based on six criteria, including IT infrastructure, IT application in internal operations, information portal, public service delivery, IT application policy, and IT personnel.
On the table for provinces and centrally-governed cities, Thua Thien Hue swapped place with Da Nang to become the number one province in IT application while Da Nang fell to second position, with Quang Ninh Province in third.
Several provinces such as Lang Son, An Giang, Bac Kan and Bac Ninh recorded significant improvements on their standings thanks to their major efforts in providing online public services.
According to Nguyen Phu Tien, deputy director of the Authority of Information Technology Application (AITA), the scores of ministries and provincial authorities in 2019 all increased from the previous year, with the average score of ministries up by 0.13 to 0.82 and that of provinces and cities up by 0.07.
Data also showed the biggest improvements were seen in IT infrastructure, IT application in internal operations and information portals, indicating that more attention had been given to investment in infrastructure and the rollout of applications oriented towards promoting e-government.
On the occasion, the AITA announced a set of digital transformation criteria with three pillars, namely digital government, digital economy and digital society, in order to evaluate the degree of digital transformation at ministries and provincial authorities.
