10 highlight events in the Finance in 2017

	Finance banking stocks to become new craze in 2018
	Many units under the Ministry of Finance save costs thanks to allocated expenditures
	Deputy Minister of Finance: to prevent the situation where the storm passed long ago, but people have not been aided

Minister Dinh Tien Dung and the delegates to press the button to officially operate the automated system for Seaport Customs management system -VASSCM. Photo: T.Bình.

The completion of the fiscal- budgetary task importantly contributed to comprehensively fulfil socio-economic development targets in 2017.

Fiscal –budgetary task in 2017 was implemented in the context where the world and the country were facing many difficulties and challenges, especially complicated natural disasters, and floods, political changes, the tendency of trade protection in the world and the increasingly fierce competition between the economies and enterprises. But under the guidance of the Party, the State, the efforts of the whole political system, business community and people, together with the determination of the entire financial sector from the central level to local level, the task has been excellently achieved.

State budget revenue was estimated at VND 1.283 million billion, surpassing 5.9 % of the estimate, reaching the desired state revenue target of 25.6 % of GDP of which revenue from tax and fee accounted for 21.1%, ensuring the source to implement important political tasks, social security policies and to deal with unexpected tasks of natural disasters, epidemics and the environment. At the same time, many important steps were taken to restructure the state budget, increase the proportion of domestic revenues to over 80%, the proportion of development and investment expenditure to over 26%. The financial sector improved fiscal and budgetary disciplines; accelerated the public debt restructuring; extended the average term of issuance of government bonds which was 3.3 times higher than that of 2011; repelled debt peaks; reduced the issuance interest rate to the lowest level ever and reversed the structure of domestic and foreign capital, bringing the ratio of domestic debt to 60% of total government debt. Particularly, the state budget deficit in 2017 was estimated to decrease by VND 4 trillion compared to the target estimate by the National Assembly, equal to 3.48 % of GDP.

Institutional improvement of financial policy and promulgation of many important and breakthrough policies.

In 2017, the Ministry of Finance proposed the National Assembly and the Government for issuance of 2 Laws, 1 National Assembly’s Resolution, 38 Government’s Decrees and 10 Prime Minister’s Decisions and to issue 134 Circulars under its competence.

The Law on Management and Use of Public Assets with the scope of regulation covers all types of public assets described in Article 53 of the Constitution 2013; The Law on Public Debt Management (revised) stipulates that the Ministry of Finance is the focal point to assist the Government with unified state management of public debt. The Ministry of Finance is also the leading agency in drafting a Resolution of the National Assembly on the specialized mechanisms of Ho Chi Minh city. The Ministry of Finance is in charge of drafting and submitting to the Government and the National Assembly for promulgating new policies and mechanisms which have contributed to improving the financial institutions and policies, and promoting the socio-economic development of the country.

24th APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting in Vietnam; this is the first time Vietnam Finance Forum has been held

APEC Finance Ministers’ Meeting- the most important event of the APEC, chaired by the Minister of Finance of Vietnam Dinh Tien Dung, and meetings on the sideline of the APEC Finance Ministers' Meeting, took place from 19th to 21st October 2017 in Hoi An, Quang Nam. The economies discussed and adopted many fields related to 4 priorities of APEC 2017, including: Long-term Investment in Infrastructure; Tax Base Erosion and Profit Shifting; Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance and Inclusive Finance.

The success of the meetings confirmed that this is a positive forum for strengthening policy cooperation and exchanging experiences among the economies of the region. Also in 2017, the Vietnam Finance Forum with the theme, "Public Financial Reform towards Sustainable Development," was organized for the first time by the Ministry of Finance with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID, within the framework of the Governance for Comprehensive Growth (GIG) Project, which will be one of the annual forums organized by the Ministry of Finance to develop and improve the public finance policy towards a Public finance is safe, healthy, open, transparent and efficient, best serving the country's economic development, ensuring social security and sustainable development.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Ministers, and delegates attending the APEC Finance Ministers' Meeting 2017.

This was the fifth consecutive time that the Ministry of Finance ranked first on IT application

2017 was the fifth consecutive year that the Ministry of Finance (MOF) ranked first on IT application (ICT Vietnam index 2017). That was the result of active and drastic IT application of the whole sector in order to access the 4th Industrial Revolution in the fastest way through the effective and synchronous deployment of solutions to ensure the network security and to build modern information technology infrastructure and application programs for people and businesses ...

In particular, the enhancement of effective deployment of online public services (providing 923 procedures, including 332 online public services at level 3.4), electronic taxation system, electronic Customs, automated system for seaport Customs management and National Single Window, etc., brought benefits not only to the financial management of the sector, but also to society and helped the Finance sector step by step form the foundation of E-Government and aim to build Digital Government in line with the orientation of digital shift under the direction of the Government with Directive No. 16 / CT-TTg dated 28th April 2017.

Close control of prices and inflation contributes significantly to macroeconomic stability

The macro management agencies continued to promote the regulatory coordination in price management for essential goods under the market mechanism regulated by the State. Thereby contributing to inflation control and macroeconomic stability. Specifically, the macro economy has remained at a GDP growth rate of 6.81% and was forecasted to remain at a high rate for the next five years, the inflation was controlled under the objective rate and market prices were relatively stable. This was the basis for creating momentum for economic growth, facilitating the improvement of the business environment and enhancing the national competitiveness .

The index of tax payment increased 81 places, domestic tax revenue hit VND 1 million billion

The report, "Doing Business 2018 report," published by the World Bank in late 2017 has noted that Vietnam’s overall tax index increased 81 places, ranked 86 out of 190 countries and territories. This result was from the great efforts in reviewing, cutting and simplifying many administrative procedures and continuously modernizing and renovating and applying IT to the tax management in order to reduce tax payment time. Electronic tax declaration system has been deployed in 63 out of 63 provinces and cities and 100% of tax branches.

99.71% of the total enterprises in operation have used electronic tax declaration services. Nearly 99.8% of enterprises have registered to use electronic tax payment services. So far, all tax departments have applied electronic VAT refunds for exports and investments. Thanks to the maintenance of production and business by the business community and efforts to reform administrative procedures and anti-tax debts and anti-loss of revenues, the Tax sector recorded for the first time that total domestic revenue reached a record of over VND 1 million billion, helping the total budget revenue of the year exceed VND 70,000 billion.

Total domestic revenue reached over VND 1 million billion

Implementation of automated system for Customs management at seaports and airports

The implementation of the VNACCS / VCIS system nationwide has contributed to reducing the customs clearance time and bringing many benefits for import and export enterprises. In order to further reform administrative procedures, reduce customs clearance time and facilitate the business community, the General Department of Customs has implemented an automated system for customs management at seaports and airports (hereinafter referred to as Supervision Project) with the objective of simplifying, harmonizing and clarifying customs procedures and procedures for delivery and receipt of goods at port areas, warehouses and yards between related parties; benefiting the people and enterprises and at the same time clearly defining the responsibilities of port, warehouse and yard operators in accordance with the Customs Law.

This Supervision Project has resulted in: reducing time and travel costs for import and export enterprises; of travel time and cost of import and export enterprises; enhancing the prestige, efficiency of business operations and competitiveness of port, warehouse and yard operators due to the reduction of labour volume and the reduction of costs from minimization of paper documents and the reduction of storage time. The Supervision Project has also helped the Customs to promptly manage time and quantity of shipments in, out or stored at ports, warehouses and yards, etc., as well as to grasp information and situation of shipments out of expiry date of Customs procedures to make appropriate decisions and improve efficiency of supervision.

Vietnam stock market has surpassed the peak in recent 10 years

In 2017, VN-Index reached 1000 points, up 48% compared to the end of 2016, reaching the highest level in recent 10 years with the participation of many large enterprises such as Sabeco, Vinamilk, Idico. The stock market scale has reached over 78% of GDP in 2016, equivalent to 70.2% of GDP in 2017, basically reaching the target set for 2020. Liquidity has been improved sharply; average trading value has achieved nearly VND 4,981 billion per session, up by 63% compared to 2016. The bond market performed well with the listed value of VND 1,015 trillion, up 8 % from the end of 2016 (equivalent to 23 % of GDP); the average trading value reached over VND 8,890 billion per session, up 38% compared to 2016. The year 2017 also marked the important milestone of the securities sector with the introduction of derivatives market which contributed to perfecting the model of modern stock market. This showed that the Vietnam's stock market has developed strongly with the highest growth in Asia and gradually became the important channel for medium and long-term capital mobilization and allocation of the economy.

To unify a focal point to control state budget expenditures through the State Treasury

In 2017, the State Treasury has unified a focal point to control state budget expenditures in the entire treasury system nationwide. This reduced the processing time from 5-7 days to 1 day and maximum 3 work days, and facilitated units using state budget to implement transactions at the State Treasury. The unified focal point of expenditure control has ensured the strict and safe control of state money and assets. This strong reform has created favourable conditions for the State Treasury to launch online public services nationwide from early 2018, contributing to the successful implementation of the State Treasury development strategy by 2020 and E-State Treasury establishment in the future.

In addition, the restructuring of the State Treasury system was strengthened in a streamlined manner, reducing 1,288 teams in the district-level state treasuries, contributing to improving the efficiency of the administrative apparatus under direction of the Government and the Ministry of Finance.

​Ministry of Finance proposes to raise VAT to 11% from 2019 VCN - In the draft report to the Government on the proposal to develop a Law amending ...

To promptly supply national reserve goods to support people in areas affected by natural disasters such as drought or floods

2017 was the year of many natural disasters, storms and floods across the country. Following the decisions of the competent authorities, the Ministry of Finance has successfully completed the task and promptly provided the national reserve goods to support the localities heavily affected by natural disasters. Specifically, 127,000 tons of rice have been delivered, 90 sets of boats; 1780 canvases; 201,000 lifebuoys, 61,000 life jackets; 1,005 life rafts; 118 sets of fire pumps; 48 generators; 32 sets of the provision of reserve goods have been implemented quickly in order to prevent food shortage for the people, promptly restore the production and stabilize people’s lives; and to support students at schools in areas with extremely difficult socio-economic conditions; and to supply materials and equipment to serve the rescue, to overcome consequences of natural disasters and epidemics etc., contributing to ensuring national security, national defence and social security.