Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) to make all out efforts since the beginning of the year to remove difficulties for businesses in order to boost production and business activities.

Addressing the ministry’s video conference in Hanoi on January 11 to launch its tasks for 2013, Dung pinpointed the most urgent problems that the ministry should deal with now, which are low productivity of industrial sectors, poor product quality and competitiveness, lax management of the market, and high inventories.

He said the ministry should strengthen coordination with relevant ministries and sectors in addressing difficulties businesses are facing in accessing credits and support policies on tax and fees. The restructuring of industrial production should be continued with the aim of increasing the scientific and technological contents in domestic-made products.

At the same time, boosting export and controlling the trade deficit is an important task for the ministry, the PM said.

Another task for the sector is to develop the market in combination with the campaign to encourage Vietnamese people to use Vietnamese goods while bettering market management and price stabilisation as it is an important solution that both benefits people and helps control inflation.

In 2013, the MoIT has set the targets of earning 126.1 billion USD from export and keeping trade deficit at 8 percent of export turnover.

Last year, the country enjoyed a good growth in export with 114.6 billion USD in revenues, up 18.3 percent year on year, resulting in a trade surplus of 284 million USD./.VNA