GFMIS is expected to support the Government by providing accurate and timely financial information, thereby ensuring transparency and accountability.— VNS Photo

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Viet Nam is moving forward to develop a complete Government financial management information system (GFMIS) in the future, a top official of the Ministry of Finance announced.

Vo Anh Trung, deputy director general of the Ministry's Department of Financial Informatics and Statistics, made the announcement at the annual conference on Exhibition Vietnam Finance 2014, which opened in the capital city on September 12.

Carrying the theme "Reinforcing government financial management information system (GFMIS) towards effective and modern public finance," the conference, which the ministry and International Data Group (IDG) Viet Nam organised, focused on breaking issues regarding the financial sector's search for information technology solutions that could ensure the efficiency of its operations.

GFMIS is a strategic financial management system which is expected to support the Government by providing accurate and timely financial information, thereby ensuring transparency and accountability.

GFMIS includes numerous core management information solutions, including the treasury and budget management information system (TABMIS), state accounting system and public assets management system.

TABMIS has been successfully deployed in 1,500 departments in Viet Nam with more than 10,000 employees trained to operate it, Trung added.

"GFMIS is a Government system connecting with policy and institutional reform and inherits the TABMIS. Successful deployment of the TABMIS project is considered a major step in the modernisation of the financial sector, with the aim of developing a complete GFMIS," Trung said.

In a statement, Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank Country Director in Viet Nam, said TABMIS has significantly enhanced internal fiscal transparency, improved budget management efficiency of and promoted accountability.

Truong Ba Tuan, deputy director of the Ministry's National Institute for Finance, said the Prime Minister last year approved the financial strategy alongside important tasks such as a healthy national financial system and efficient and effective financial monitoring and management.

Tuan also stressed the importance of GFMIS, saying: "GFMIS has been developed and implemented in Viet Nam as well as many other countries in the world to promote a connection between the finance sector and information technology, thereby contributing to the optimisation of information management and the development of a national data warehouse."

Sharing experiences on GFMIS deployment in the region, Chin Yeoh Tan, IBM Global Business Services country director for Viet Nam, said the country has made good progress in the application of information technology for financial reform. However, he added, it would need to guard against the temptation of over-integration and must implement GFMIS in conjunction with the reform of the budgetary and accounting frameworks.

On the sidelines of the conference, visitors were introduced to diversified technologies designed to serve the finance sector. The modern exhibition zone featured the latest technology solutions such as Omniflow, e-payment technology and Cloud Computing solution for finance information systems.

The conference also consisted of in-depth discussions with leading experts with the aim of sharing experiences of regional countries on technology, solutions and processes that ensure the effectiveness of public finance management. — VNS