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Thanks to Internet, consumers can easily buy online in the world. Photo: Phan Thu.

Opportunities for many stakeholders

The digital economy (the Internet economy or the new economy) is an economy based on digital technology. According to many experts, the technology is a core element in the development of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and it is undeniable that the ASEAN region has a high level of integration.

Accordingly, the AEC formed a market with more than 600 million people, ranked 2nd in the world in investment attraction and 3rd in the world in the use of the Internet. To 2020, the number of Internet users will reach 480 million people instead of 260 million people now.

The report "Promoting AEC: The digital economy and the free flow of data" which has been recently published showed that if AEC takes advantage of the digital economy, it will create an economic paradise but AEC should pay attention to policies. The digital economy not only creates opportunities for large enterprises, foreigners and people working in the financial sector, but it also facilitate consumers, producers, small enterprises, banks and local investors.

According to Mr. Jeff Pirie, the Manager of AEC in Southeast Asia and Singapore, in terms of business, small and medium-sized enterprises in ASEAN are creating 70% of jobs, but they only contribute about 30% of GDP of AEC, far behind the contribution of small and medium-sized enterprises in the European Union at a rate of 58%.

Therefore, the development of digital technology will help small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam participate in the global supply chain with a low cost. The most important thing for ASEAN countries is to create a good environment with reasonable policies for development of digital technology.

Regarding small and medium-sized enterprises, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, the Head of the Legal Department of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that small and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam, especially micro enterprises were very interested in digital technology because these enterprises do not have enough resources as large businesses to advertise or expand the market.

There have been many small businesses which are very successful in the application of technology and the Internet. Mr. Tuan took a small enterprise in Vu Dai village as an example for using the Internet to sell fish cooked with fish sauce bowl throughout the country and overseas. The scale of this enterprise has increased by hundreds of times each year. Moreover, the Internet has also helped many local agricultural products sell to many places.

Sharing the same view, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hung, the Chairman of the Vietnam E-commerce Association said that thanks to exchanging data on the Internet, there are more opportunities for businesses to expand the market, reduce business costs and promote after-sales services.

A common environment created

The potentiality of economic development based on digital technology is enormous, but the level of digital technology application in ASEAN has not been really good. Mr. Schaag Stuart, the senior official of the US Trade commented: "In order to exploit the potentiality of the digital economy, there is a need for strengthening connection. This is a necessary thing that ASEAN should pay more attention to develop the digital economy".

However, Ambassador Mr. Michael Michalak in Business Council of American-ASEAN said that there were still many challenges that need to be resolved and also quite important to all countries in ASEAN including data localization, network security and private data security.

"Currently, the countries in ASEAN are building a separate mechanism on 3 issues, which makes many enterprises confused, as well as preventing the flow of data", Mr. Michael Michalak said.

He also added that the free flow of data was the fundamental element of the digital economy. Therefore, ASEAN Governments should have dialogues to harmonize policies, creating a common environment, ensuring security and facilitating the free flow of data.

Moreover, data localization partly affects the free flow of trade. Thus, it is important to guide the users to know how to use secure e-commerce. Because if the countries try to protect data localization, it can create greater harm.

Another problem is that payments play an important role in the digital economy, particularly cross-border payments. Therefore, the ASEAN Governments should jointly create a legal environment for safer payments, which also helps Governments to manage tax collection more efficiently.

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However, a study of the Agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) showed that ASEAN countries had very different levels of e-commerce, but the good thing was that the TPP countries in ASEAN region accepted the TPP's high standards and were trying to narrow the gap to meet criteria.