Panasonic Life Solutions Vietnam Co, Ltd's factory at the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) in Binh Duong province. Vietnam's industrial production in the first two months of this year decreases by 6.3% year-on-year. (Photo: VNA) This was one of the solutions GSO proposed to maintainmacro-economic stability and promote economic growth.
It is necessary to closely monitor the global economic situationand the fiscal and monetary policies of countries with a large economic scale.
"The Government should regularly review to promptly removedifficulties and obstacles of enterprises for promoting production and businessactivities, including lack of capital, high input material prices anddifficulties in product consumption," Ngoc said.
"Besides that, it needs to have prompt support for severalindustries being affected by declining demand of the world market such asleather, footwear, textiles and wood."
It needs to monitor labour and job markets closely and thensupport the enterprises to overcome labour shortages.
State management offices should effectively implement solutions tostimulate trade and service demand and develop tourism programmes.
On the other hand, they should focus on expanding and diversifyingexport products and markets by effectively exploiting the signed free tradeagreements (FTAs) between Vietnam and its partners. On that basis, policiesalso need to be adjusted to lure further high-quality foreign direct investment.
"The Government should drastically and quickly implement thetasks and investment projects under the programme for socio-economic recoveryand development in 2023, including disbursement of public investment capitalfor key projects to be completed this year or early 2024," Ngoc said.
Disease prevention and control must be strengthened along withplans on preventing drought and saltwater intrusion impacts, as well as naturaldisasters, rain, floods and landslides to minimise damage to production andpeople's lives.
Finally, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of Statemanagement agencies and tighten administrative discipline in those agencies.
According to the GSO, Vietnam's socio-economic development inFebruary took place in the context that the world economy continued to havemany complicated fluctuations.
Global inflation cooled but remained at a high level, while worldenergy prices are still increasing, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict has manyunexpected developments.
Global consumer demand is reducing, causing the number of exportorders and turnover to decrease. Many key industries have been affected,especially in localities with large industrial scales, such as Quang Ngai, VinhPhuc, Binh Duong, and HCM City.
Therefore, the index of industrial production (IIP) in the firsttwo months of this year decreased by 6.3% over the same period last year.
The exports to some key markets recorded a decline, such as the EU(down 4.2%); the Republic of Korea (5.7%); Japan (5.9%); ASEAN (7.9%); and theUS (21%).
In that challenging situation, the production and businessactivities of the enterprises were severely affected by higher input costs butlower orders. Many businesses temporarily suspended operations to find otherdirections or wait for dissolution procedures.
In the first two months of the year, the number of enterprisessuspending business for a definite term was about 39,000 units, an increase of18.5% over the same period last year. About 9,400 enterprises were waiting fordissolution procedures, an increase of 5.8%.
The difficulties of the world economy also prevented foreigninvestors from expanding the scale of existing projects in Vietnam. As of theend of February, registered FDI capital reached 535.4 million USD, the lowestfrom 2019 to 2023 and a reduction of 4.9% year on year.
Core inflation in the first two months of 2023 increased by 5.08%,higher than the general inflation at 4.6%.
"This is a challenge for the State management agencies inissuing monetary policy. It is necessary to have a proactive and flexiblemonetary policy, ensuring inflation control and supporting economicgrowth," Ngoc said.
However, the IIP of the number of processing and manufacturingindustries in February increased compared to the same period last year, such asthe production of beverages, coke, refined petroleum and chemicals, she said.
The total retail sales of goods and services increased by 13%yearly, while Vietnam had a trade surplus of 2.82 billion USD in the first twomonths.
International visitors to Vietnam were estimated at 1.8 millionarrivals, nearly 37 times higher than last year, due to many internationaltourism programmes when the COVID-19 pandemic is under control./.
VNA
