State budget collection will likely be difficult this year and the Government needs to outline effective measures to ease difficulties in production and recover economic growth.

This opinion was shared by economists at a seminar held on May 10 in Hanoi by the National Assembly's Finance and Budget Committee.

According to Nguyen Minh Tan, deputy director of the National Assembly Office's Department of Finance and Budget, the amount collected for the budget in the first four months was far lower than that collected in previous years.

Tan attributed the decline to the slow recovery of the economy and State measures on tax reduction and tax deferral.

Sanjay Kalra, resident representative of the International Monetary Fund in Vietnam, said that the economic growth of Vietnam this year would remain low, so the GDP growth rate would be similar to 2012 or even lower. This would put tremendous pressure on the State budget collection.

Nguyen Hong Son, Rector of the University of National Economics, agreed, emphasising that the process of economic restructuring in Vietnam would be difficult, as it required a huge budget. Economist Tran Du Lich, a deputy of the National Assembly (NA), said that despite the fact that tax collection remained difficult, solutions were needed to promote business and production and support the market.

Lich noted that reducing the corporate income tax to 20 percent would further decrease the State budget, but said that this was a "necessary measure to spur economic development in the mid-term period", adding that he "persistently insisted on reducing it to 20 percent instead of the current 23 percent".

In addition, the economist said, the State also needed to ensure that taxes were collected from other business sectors such as import and export as well as individuals.

The National Assembly's Resolution on the State Budget targets an increase of 10 percent for the total State budget revenue in 2013 and estimates that State budget spending will increase 8 percent over the estimated spending in 2012.-VNA