Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (middle) (Source:VNA) In his opening speech, he said despitenumerous challenges during the year, the government has been determined tobuild transparent, constructive and action-minded administrative systems at alllevels and issued a number of resolutions to improve business and investment climate.
Notably, the year 2016 wasdesigned to be a Year of Start-up.
A working group was establishedto inspect the implementation of tasks assigned by the government and the PM. Asmany as 6,367 out of 10,205 tasks have been fulfilled. Among 3,838 unfulfilledtasks, 182 failed to meet deadline while others are under way.
As the result, the country posteda 6.21 percent GDP growth, higher than the rates recorded by many developingcountries in Asia and Southeast Asia. The foreign currency reserves hit arecord 41 billion USD while revenues to the State budget met target. Exportvalue increased 6.8 percent and export surplus reached 2.68 billion USD despitelosses of 1 percent and 0.3 percent loss of GDP caused by natural disasters andthe mass fish deaths in the central region, respectively.
More than 110,000 new firms wereestablished during the year with a total registered capital of 891 trillion VND(38.7 billion USD), the highest so far, up 48.1 percent in capital and 16.2percent in the number of businesses.
The disbursement of foreigndirect investment hit a record 15.8 billion USD. As of December 26, there were2,556 foreign-invested projects nationwide. The total newly-registered andadditional capital amounted to 24.4 billion USD, up 7.1 percent annually.
Tourism sector served more than10 million tourists, also the highest so far.
The country was ranked 89th out of 190 countries and territories in terms of business climate, up 9 placesfrom 2015.
The new rural development campaignbrought about positive results, with 30 district-level units and 2,235 communes,or more than 25 percent of communes nationwide, have met criteria for new-stylerural areas.
Regarding social development, thepoverty rate based on multi-dimensional criteria fell to nearly 8.5 percent,with 1.61 million new jobs being created. The health insurance coverage surpassed81 percent for the first time. The country won its first Olympic gold medal.
Attention has also been paid tolaw-building, with the issuance of 160 decrees guiding the enforcement of laws.
Under the direction of the PM andgovernment, the entire political system joined in efforts to prevent andmitigate natural disasters, climate change response and environment protection.The Government has closed natural forests and strictly punished forestdestruction activities.
Urgent issues of public concernhave been dealt with promptly, including the marine environment incident in thecentral region, food safety, and the fight against corruption and vestedinterest as well as wastefulness.
The nine outstanding problems in2016 included a 64 percent slump in the mining industry’s production index,with crude oil output and export value tumbling 12 percent and 36.7 percent,respectively, due to the strong fall in world oil prices.
Drought, flooding and salineintrusion devastated many regions. The marine environment incident has causedserious consequences, especially in the central region. Projects worth trillionVND incurred losses while commercial banks faced high risks.
Serious fires, road accidents andcrimes happened across the country. A number of serious violations of personnelregulations have been uncovered such as the case involving former Vice Chairmanof the Hau Giang provincial People’s Committee Trinh Xuan Thanh.
Vietnam fell four places in internationalrankings in innovation and creativity, placed at 59th out of 128.
Members of the government andlocal authorities listened to a draft resolution on launching the government’saction plan to implement the resolution on Party building and rectificationadopted by the fourth plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th tenure).
Participants gave nod to thegovernment’s report and expressed determination to perform socio-economic taskssince the beginning of next year.
Local officials vowed to continueimproving business climate and facilitating business operations.
In the morning of December 29,the conference is due to discuss socio-economic affairs./.
VNA
