Economy improves but challenges remain: official

Despite strong efforts and more positive signals recorded, Vietnam’s economic growth stood at only 3.72% in the first half of 2023, putting heavy pressure on the realisation of this year’s GDP growth target of 6.5%, said Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong.
Economy improves but challenges remain: official ảnh 1Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong addresses the Vietnam Wealth Advisors Summit 2023 in Hanoi on August 8. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Despite strong efforts and more positivesignals recorded, Vietnam’s economic growth stood at only 3.72% in the firsthalf of 2023, putting heavy pressure on the realisation of this year’s GDPgrowth target of 6.5%, said Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment TranQuoc Phuong.

Addressing the Vietnam Wealth Advisors Summit 2023 in Hanoi onAugust 8, he said it is worrying that production and business activities inmany sectors are struggling with difficulties. The resilience of enterpriseshas been eroded after the COVID-19 pandemic, and some of them have had to scaledown operations and output.

Big challenges at present are related to the market, money flow,and administrative procedures, he pointed out, noting that capital costs arestill high while enterprises still find it hard to access credit, issue corporatebonds, or sell stocks.

Outstanding credit during H1 increased by 4.28%, lower than therise of 9.44% seen in the same period of 2022, statistics show.

Phuong noted that measures to speed up public investment disbursement, fosterexport, and stimulate consumption are being carried out strongly to fuelgrowth.

This is a “very heavy” task because the failure to achieve thisyear’s growth target will affect the implementation of the five-year plan for2021 - 2025, the 10-year strategy for 2021 - 2030, and even the targets for2030 - 2045 set in the resolution of the 13th National PartyCongress.

It will be difficult to reach targets without breakthrough mechanismsand policies, he went on.

Given this, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has suggestedthe Government propose the Politburo amend and supplement some mechanisms andpolicies related to production, business, and investment such as those on thechange of land use purposes, the use of local budgets to carry out the tasksand projects managed by ministries and central agencies in localities, and theincrease of the proportion of State capital in public - private partnership projects.

These are urgent issues needing quick amendment and perfection to tacklebottlenecks and facilitate socio-economic development, the Deputy Minister emphasised.

At the event, Nguyen Anh Duong, head of the general research board at theCentral Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), held that to boost economic growth,stabilising the macro-economy and controlling inflation remain important tasks,but more attention should be paid to removing obstables for enterprises.

In particular, it is necessary to improve their capital accessand capital absorption capacity, better the business climate and labour productivity,and bravely issue regulations on pilot mechanisms for new economic models suchas fintech and circular economy.

The Government should also effectively implement the free tradeagreements Vietnam has joined and consider negotiating and upgrading some others,he recommended.

In addition, localities need to effectively attract and use foreign investmentin the new context, Duong said, suggesting that they further open some fieldsto foreign investors, boost cooperation with other localities in FDIattraction, step up technology transfer from foreign firms, and increasetraining for labourers to meet FDI companies’ requirements.

For his part, Le Xuan Nghia, member of the National Advisory Council forFinancial and Monetary Policies, perceived that the Vietnamese economy willrecord a U-shape recovery instead of fast recovery because the global economyis also rebounding gradually, the six-month foreign trade decreased but thedecline has decelerated while some export sectors like electronics andagriculture are bouncing back well, and the service sector is also recoveringrelatively well.

He predicted that the economy will recover more observably in around the fourthquarter of 2023./.
VNA

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