Completing a set of indicators to measure socio-economic development is inevitable for a market economy, as heard at a workshop in Hanoi on June 23.

The performance indicators are important for orienting the national socio-economic development, which helps the Party and State map out plans and strategies as well as manage, scrutinise and evaluate the implementation of development plans in each period, said Professor Doctor Vuong Dinh Hue.

Participants pointed out shortcomings in the current system, which lacks indicators reflecting economic efficacy, competitiveness, sustainability and growth quality.

Indicators evaluating the economic restructuring process such as labour productivity, total-factor productivity, national competitive capacity, human development index and incremental capital output ratio have yet to be established, they said.

Furthermore, some criteria are not in accordance with international practices and others are not based on reliable statistics (such as calculating the number of domestic tourists and the number of people using hygienic water).

A number of socio-economic targets have been set without allocating sufficient financial resources, resulting in low feasibility, experts said, adding that the estimated, preliminary and official statistics of several indicators are uneven due to restrictions in the Law on Statistics promulgated in 2003 and loose coordination between ministries, sectors and localities.

Experts suggested indicators to be retained, removed or supplemented while proposing new criteria for socio-economic development plans.

They also discussed in depth the role of planning and statistics agencies, methods to calculate indicators, and increasing coordination between ministries and relevant sectors to handle violations in statistics reporting and evaluate the implementation of socio-economic development plans.

The workshop was organised by the Party Central Committee’s Economics Commission, the National Assembly Committee for Economic Affairs, the World Bank in Vietnam and the National Economics University.

It aims to collect feedback on research of socio-economic performance indicators and discussion on the draft revised Law on Statistics.-VNA