The financial sector has applied ICT applications to all its professional operations to assist direct calculation works. However, according to Mr Dang Duc Mai, director of Financial Information and Statistics Department, the current ICT sector is now able to satisfy only 30-40 per cent of actual demand.
Speaking at the fourth annual exhibition on “Vietnam ICT in Finance 2007,” Mr Dang Duc Mai, director of Financial Information and Statistics Department, said the financial sector had only 21 application software programmes in 2001, but the figure has since jumped to 48. Of the sum, 20 software programmes are used for budgeting activities, 12 for debt, collection and public assets and two for enterprises.
Mai said the financial sector has WAN network linking to district levels. The sector is also piloting several public services on the network, such as electronic customs declaration system, tax payment self-declaration and State Budget information system.
Tax and customs have many manual activities
Assessing IT application for the e-customs system, Mr Dang Hanh Thu, deputy general director of the General Department of Customs, said Vietnam now has 215 enterprises registering for electronic customs and hundreds of customs officers have been trained in this new profession. Initially, the sector has automated several customs processes such as declaration, reception and feedback, information check, and communication.
However, Thu said information processing in customs organs remains manual in many stages.
Deputy General Director of General Department of Taxation, Le Hong Hai, said the computer network has linked the general department with 64 taxation departments and nearly 700 taxation branches nationwide.
However, the taxation sector is only able to automate several stages in the tax management, including tax code granting, tax declaration, tax calculation, debt collection management, corporate finance information reporting and investigation result management.
Besides, the number of taxpayers is rising sharply, especially when personal income tax will be applied in 2009, said Ms Hai. The system may become overloaded, she added.
Regarding the integrated tax administration information system (ITAIS), Ms Le Hong Hai said this system will be used from 2008 to 2012 at a total cost of US$88 million to apply the latest technology for tax management to assist tax management agencies with full basic functions for all kinds of taxes.
With this system, tax management information must be inputted exactly to analyse information of taxpayers, calculate tax sum, debts and payables.
Under the roadmap, the tax sector has to build an electronic taxation system to provide tax declaration for taxpayers, said Pham Quang Toan, deputy director of IT Application Department under the General Department of Taxation. This system will include electronic declaration gateways, electronic declaration papers, signature authentication services and electronic declaration form stores. Under this roadmap, the digital signature will be used to ensure the security and integrity of data on electronic declaration forms.
Mai said in the coming years, the financial sector will develop integrated financial management information systems (IFMIS). Particularly, 11 information systems will be developed for subordinate units. The typical systems are Treasury and Budget Management Information System (TABMIS), integrated tax administration information system (ITAIS), Vietnam customs information system (VCIS) and debt management system (DMS).
P.V
Vietnamese
