The Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2014 was launched in Hanoi on May 29, exploring constraints to the country’s economic growth.

The report was conducted by the Vietnam Centre for Economic and Policy Research under the University of Economics and Business and the Vietnam National University Hanoi (VNU Hanoi).

It includes seven chapters and two appendices, reviewing the global and Vietnamese economies in 2013 and identifying the country’s binding constraints using a growth diagnostics approach.

The report also gives a financial assessment of Vietnam’s banking system using financial soundness indicators, looks at international economic integration, and suggests Vietnam’s economic prospects in 2014 and policy implications.

It indicates various constraints such as the financial system, labour markets, energy markets, investment climate, incomplete institutional settings for a real market economy, and an administrative system that is unwieldy for enterprises and entrepreneurship.

These internal constraints limit the efficiency and effectiveness of the country’s international integration, it says.

This report is a key product of the VNU Hanoi’s strategic research programme, called “Economic Theories and Macroeconomic Policy in the condition of International Economic Integration of Vietnam”.

It is also part of the package of “Independent Economic Assessments” funded by the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the 2014 – 2016 period.

The full Vietnamese version of the report will be issued in July, while the English version will be released in September.

The report has been conducted every year since 2009. Its research results have been published as a series of annual reports in order to summarise major economic issues in the previous year, and provide an economic outlook for the coming year and policy recommendations.-VNA