The national public service portal will launch its e-notary service on July 1, Minister-Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung said at a recent meeting with agencies to prepare for the roll-out of the service designed to certify electronicallly copies of original documents.

A private notary office in HCM City. (Photo plo.vn)

The system is also expected to be implemented nationwide, he added.

Speaking at the meeting, Dung hailed the move as a major leap forward in the building of e-government.

After six months of launching the national public service portal, an electronic platform to connect the Government with people and enterprises, at least 41 million people have visited the website.

About 159,000 accounts have been registered, nine million records sent to the portal and synchronised, and more than 102,000 records dealt with through the system.

So far, the portal has provided 458 online public services including 203 services for citizens and 266 for businesses.

"The system has initially been well received and promoted its functions to serve the people and businesses," the minister said.

The Government issued a decree on administrative procedures in the electronic environment, an important legal document for the use of electronic documents, electronic and digital signatures and electronic transactions.

Dung stated it is not appropriate that citizens still have to present hard copies when conducting administrative procedures on the national public service portal, which is why the Government is opening the e-copy certification service.

Reports of the Ministry of Justice found there were more than 102 million documents that needed to be notarised in 2019, and if even 30% of the digital certification copies were reused, an estimated 428 billion VND (18.4 million USD) would be saved.

When the service is implemented, citizens and businesses will be able to book an appointment for their documents to be certified, helping save time, said Ngo Hai Phan, director-general of the Government Office’s Administrative Procedure Control Department.

An e-notary copy also includes the digital signature and seal of competent agencies to ensure integrity, accuracy and reusability, according to Hai.

The e-copies will have the same value as the original documents, he said.

With the e-copies, citizens and businesses can conduct most administrative procedures provided on the portal entirely online, eliminating the need to submit certified hard copies.

At the meeting, the head of the Government Office also asked agencies to work together to create strong conversion towards electronic transactions and payments.

Agencies are working closely to fine-tune the legal framework and mechanism to ensure standard practice for the launching of the service, Dung said.