Postage is the infrastructure of the digital economy and e-commerce

In 2001, the Prime Minister signed and promulgated the “Strategy for Post and Telecommunication Development to 2010 and Orientation to 2020” (Decision No. 158/2001/QD-TTg). After 20 years of implementing this Strategy, the postal sector has made important contributions to the country’s socio-economic development.

However, the drastic change of the postal and e-commerce market, along with the development of digital technology associated with the industrial revolution 4.0, has changed the way of doing business and consuming services, opening up New opportunities for postal development. Therefore, it is required to have new strategic orientations in line with the outstanding development of the postal industry.

Seize the opportunity, solve the challenge

The industrial revolution 4.0 with the impact of digital technology has promoted e-commerce to develop strongly globally.

From 2019 to now, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has seriously affected the global economy. However, according to the sharing of the Department of E-commerce & Digital Economy (Ministry of Industry and Trade) at the press conference of Online Shopping Week and Online Shopping Day Online Friday 2021 taking place on November 26 last year, during the Covid-19 pandemic. 19, although many localities had to social distance, e-commerce in Vietnam still boomed and grew by about 18%, changing the consumption habits of Vietnamese people.

The report of the Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) in 2020 predicts that the average growth rate of our e-commerce in the period 2020-2025 is 29% and by 2025 is estimated to reach 52 billion USD.

The amount of goods transacted through online channels has increased rapidly, leading to an explosive demand for delivery services. That is an opportunity, an infinite space for the postal industry to exploit to make a transformation from delivering newsletters to becoming an important foundation for e-commerce development, to becoming an important infrastructure of the digital economy, ensuring ensure material flow besides data flow in the digital economy and digital society.

Currently, the postal industry is emerging as a logistics industry for socio-economic development. Traditional postal companies with strong networks, large infrastructure and large staff are accompanying startups with strengths in technology, dynamism and ambition to develop develop rapidly when using the sharing economy platform to participate in providing services.

The postal market in Vietnam is witnessing the OLD and NEW intertwine, competing with each other and the future will have spectacular usurpations. Postal companies, with the traditional way of providing services, slow to innovate, are losing market share to startups, technology enterprises that are young in experience but soon apply many technologies. foundation for service provision.

The strong development of digital technology has formed the “giant” of technology, owning cross-border platforms, and the Vietnamese market has become the “arena” of those platforms. To survive this war, there is no other way, the postal industry must transform itself into a digital supply network, transfer the material values ​​of society, and be ready to cooperate to ensure security. national security.

The role of the post office in socio-economic development

With a network of over 21,600 service points up to the commune level, covering 63 provinces and cities, and a force of nearly 800 businesses, the postal industry is no longer a burden but a great asset, possessing advantages. Not every field has it. Nearly 100,000 postal workers are operating and exploiting to meet the needs of delivering a large volume of e-commerce goods with increasing quality, ensuring the provision of postal services to serve the direction and administration. of the Party and State.

In the coming time, when smart devices are popularized, the postal infrastructure (along with telecommunications and electronic payment infrastructure) will be the bridge to support e-commerce activities to develop on the basis of the Digital Address Platform. Vietnam to expand the postal market. In particular, focusing on promoting e-commerce in rural areas, contributing to promoting the development of the digital economy in agriculture and rural areas.

The digital revolution and the Covid-19 pandemic have changed the global economic growth model. Vietnam Post sees this as an opportunity to realize the industry’s aspirations, become an essential infrastructure of the country and digital economy, and contribute to promoting the development of digital government and digital society.

From the perspective of digital government, like many countries around the world, the post office is the main partner, even the only partner of the Government to serve the people.

With the digital economy, postal services serve e-commerce. As shared platform business models (delivery, food delivery, gift delivery, documents), the booming new generation e-commerce and retail business models all need a widespread delivery infrastructure to deliver goods to consumers. The government’s postal network covers all provinces and cities with 27,600 service points, 100% of communes in the country have postal service points that can bring products of production households and cooperatives to consumption everywhere in the world. country and out to the world.

From the perspective of digital society, the postal industry has become a service industry that participates in improving people’s quality of life, ensuring security, and giving trust to society; participate in the prevention and control of natural disasters, epidemics and emergencies under the direction of the Party and State…

Postal development orientation to 2030

On May 30, 2022, the Prime Minister signed to approve the “Postal development strategy to 2025 and orientation to 2030″. This is the first national strategy of the postal sector with the vision of “The post office becomes the essential infrastructure of the country and of the digital economy, especially of e-commerce; expanding service ecosystem, expanding new operating space; promoting the development of digital government and digital society”.

To realize the vision to 2030, the Strategy has identified 8 groups of solutions to be implemented: Improving the legal environment; Postal infrastructure development; Development of postal services; Postal number conversion; Research and develop human resources and propaganda; Improve capacity for state management of postal services; International cooperation and Measure, monitor and evaluate the implementation of the Strategy.

In which, focus on a number of core tasks and solutions such as: Building a planning for the development of public postal network infrastructure; Implement the Program to support agricultural production households on the e-commerce floor, promote the development of the agricultural and rural digital economy; To build regional and regional postal centers (MegaHub/Hub); Completing the Vietnam Digital Address Platform in association with the national digital map used nationwide; Accelerating digital transformation in the postal sector, expanding the data-based postal service ecosystem, expanding new operating spaces.

Duong Ton Bao (Postal Department – Ministry of Information and Communications)