Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien (Photo: Vietnam+) Hanoi (VNA) - It can be said that the import-export turnover posting a record 730 billion USD was a bright spot in the economic picture in 2022, despite numerous difficulties and negative impacts from the global economy.
The result was attributed to the efforts made by the business community and the entire industry and trade sector - the Government’s advisory agency in the field of industry and trade.
With its right and timely decisions and solutions in each period, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has affirmed its pivotal position, making an important contribution to the national macroeconomic growth.
Looking back on the past year, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said that despite huge adverse impacts on Vietnam's economy in 2022, Vietnam saw a strong recovery, overcoming the challenges and negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and is regaining growth momentum.
- Along with domestic trade and services, import and export achievement made last year was among the important contributors to economic growth in 2022. What are the highlights in management and administration to achieve such results?
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien: In 2022, Vietnam continued to set a new record with a total import-export turnover of about 732 billion USD, maintaining a trade surplus for the 7th consecutive year, bringing Vietnam into the group of leading economies in terms of international trade.
Exports increased by 10.5% to 371.5 billion USD, exceeding the targets assigned by the National Assembly and the Government. There were 39 items with export turnover of over 1 billion USD, an increase of 4 items compared to 2021. Of them, 9 items posted an export turnover of over 10 billion USD.
The growth of exports in 2022 was a bright spot in the country's economic development, demonstrating the efforts of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in synchronously implementing many solutions to remove difficulties.
Under the Ministry’s direction on preparing commodities and stabilizing the market, almost all localities and businesses manufacturing and trading consumer goods still maintained their plans to prepare goods to serve the increased demand, especially on holidays, despite many difficulties after the pandemic.
Most localities actively and effectively implemented the programme to stabilize the market, connecting the supply and demand of goods to support the consumption of domestically produced goods and to ensure a sufficient supply of goods in different periods of peak consumption.
Therefore, the commodity market in general and essential commodities in particular were basically stable, the supply of goods was abundant and diverse, meeting the demand in all regions of the country.
The essential goods market was generally relatively stable. The CPI for the whole year 2022 was controlled at about 3% (far from the 4% set by the National Assembly). After two consecutive years of decline due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country's total retail sales rebounded sharply this year.
That shows that Vietnam’s post-pandemic economic recovery policies have been effective.
The total retail sales of goods and services in 2022 was estimated at about 5,639.5 trillion VND, up 21% compared to 2021 (the plan is to increase 8%).
Besides trade, industrial production is also an important pillar in economic development. What are the key industries that have recovered strongly after the pandemic to make an important contribution to the recovery of the economy in general?
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien: In the 10 outstanding events of the industry and trade sector in 2022, there were important bright spots in the fields of industry, international and domestic trade-service.
In fact, industrial production recovered positively in most industries, fields and localities, and supply chains have been resumed and diversified.
Vietnam's textile and garment industry continues to affirm its leading position in export. (Photo: Duc Duy/Vietnam+) Following the Government's direction on promoting production development and economic recovery, the Ministry of Industry and Trade organised many conferences and meetings with the aim of seeking ways to remove difficulties and obstacles to support enterprises.
With clear efficiency in solving difficulties, industrial production of the whole country recovered with a high growth rate.
In 2022, the index of industrial production increased by more than 9%, reaching the industry's growth target of 8.5-9%. The industrial sector’s added value increased by about 9% compared to 4.82% recorded in the same period last year and higher than the growth scenario in Resolution 01 under which GDP in industry is set to increase by 6.4-7.3%.
Specifically, the processing and manufacturing industry continued to maintain the momentum of the entire industry. The production index of the processing and manufacturing industry increased by over 9% in 2022, contributing more than 86% of the country's total export turnover.
There were two basic reasons behind the good results in production recovery and development. First, Vietnam controlled the COVID-19 pandemic early and determined the right time to open the economy. Second, it focused on boosting production and exports.
What do you think about the difficulties and challenges that the trade-service sector as well as the domestic industrial production will face in 2023?
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien: I think that in 2023, the industry and trade industry will continue to face many difficulties and challenges. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict situation persists, which makes energy supply and prices continue to be complicated and unpredictable.
Although the economy has shown remarkable signs of recovery, growth showed signs of slowdown in the last months of 2022.
The impact of the global economy on the country was very obvious as the increasing openness of the economy will affect the implementation of the growth targets set by the National Assembly and the Government.
Vietnam's export growth will depend on many factors such as the conflict in Ukraine, inflation control, measures to prevent the COVID-19 epidemic, and economic developments in markets whịch have a large scale of imports in the world.
Attracting domestic and foreign investment will be the driving force to create new production capacity for export.
It is hoped that Vietnamese enterprises will continue to seek new markets and make full use of the advantages from FTAs to boost export in 2023.
- From reality in 2022, what measures will the Ministry of Industry and Trade take to achieve the tasks and plans of 2023?
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien: To overcome difficulties and challenges and continue to stabilize the macro-economy in 2023, the industry and trade sector will focus on three key tasks.
Firstly, the Ministry will focus on supporting businesses to find sources of materials for production before the risks of supply chain disruption.
Along with that, the ministry will continue to implement programmes to connect domestic enterprises to participate in the supply chains of FDI enterprises and global large enterprises while focusing on solving difficulties, obstacles to supporting enterprises in restoring production.
The ministry will also focus on solutions to stabilize production, ensure a balance between supply and demand of essential commodities such as gasoline, electricity, coal, fertilizer, meeting demand for goods and energy for production and people's daily life.
Minister Nguyen Hong Dien conducts physical inspection at the Petrolimex’s General Petroleum Depot. (Photo: Duc Duy/Vietnam+) Secondly, on import and export, the Ministry will utilize the signed FTAs, focusing on new markets, paying attention to neighboring and potential markets while promoting the role of Vietnamese trade offices abroad to expand and diversify markets, remove technical barriers for enterprises to penetrate new markets and giving early warning of the risk of trade lawsuits.
In addition, the Ministry will also closely monitor the international situation, proactively assess the impacts of such events on Vietnam's production, import and export in order to make timely adjustments and responses.
However, the Ministry also recommends that businesses continue to improve their competitiveness and create high-quality products to meet the strict standards of the world market with increasingly competitive prices.
Thirdly, on developing the domestic market, the Ministry will coordinate with localities and businesses in the field of distribution and logistics to focus on exploiting the domestic market which remains an ample room for growth, in the context of overseas markets tend to be narrowed.
Particularly for petroleum products, the Ministry will regularly direct, inspect and urge businesses to strictly implement the assigned additional import plan to make up for the shortage of goods, without causing interruptions of petrol and oil supply in the business system, ensuring energy security, and preventing supply shortages in any situation.
In addition, the Ministry also continues to closely monitor the world gasoline prices to have appropriate management solutions.
- Thank you very much, Minister!
