Increasing resilience and self-strengthening of the economy
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Ms. Tran Thi Hong Minh, Director of Central Institute for Economic Management. |
The government has set a target for economic growth in 2021 at 6.5%, do you think this is ambitious amid the continuing Covid-19 pandemic?
Facing many difficulties in 2020, Vietnam still exhibits relatively good resilience, with growth of 2.91%. This growth rate is the lowest in the past 30 years, but it shows strength when placed in the context that many countries are heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
However, the development of Covid-19 and the consequences on the economy are unpredictable in 2021. Therefore, there need to be many scenarios for economic development. By overcoming difficulties in 2020, I think that, with the scenario of preventing and combating Covid-19 effectively, the possibility of achieving economic growth from 6% to 6.5% is quite feasible.
What breakthrough solutions do you think we need to focus on to achieve the goals?
I think that promoting economic recovery must be based on radical solutions. In which the most important is to increase resilience of the economy. This is also the most urgent requirement when we are witnessing the disruption of the global economy.
Accordingly, we need to prioritize some specific groups of solutions. The first solution is to perfect institutions. In 2020, Vietnam passed a number of important laws such as the revised Enterprise Law, the 2020 Public-Private Partnership Investment Law and several other laws. In 2021, when these laws come in effect, there will be solutions to best implement these laws as well as review legal documents to avoid overlaps, creating a legal framework as a foundation for development. Because if there is no good and enforceable legal framework, the implementation will be inconsistent.
The second is to continue restructuring the economy in the direction of focusing on areas that in the past five years had many shortcomings. Thinking about industrial policy must be concretized in the direction of greater concentration, feasibility and towards the internal capacity of the economy. Focusing on developing stronger economic models to make the most of available resources in both space, time and people. Development of new economies that we have institutionalized in recent years such as night economic model and sharing economy. Similarly, digital economic development is also a key content for us to grasp the advantages of science and technology.
At the same time, strengthening institutions, promoting science and technology to take advantage of the achievements of Industry 4.0 to build an industry focusing on manufacturing creating high value and focus on core technology so that we can master the production chain and the supply chain.
We must promote more efficient exports in 2021, when we have entered into new-generation Free Trade Agreements that are key to the world economy like the EVFTA, CPTPP and RCEP. The EVFTA in the third quarter of 2020 has made a great contribution, creating a "push" for Vietnam's exports in 2020 to reach the export figure of $218 billion and a trade surplus of nearly $20 billion. However, it is necessary to pay attention to enhancing the participation of Vietnamese enterprises in export activities, creating added value to the domestic economic sector and improving the ability to meet rules of origin in FTAs.
Regarding FDI investment, we must take full advantage of opportunities from the investment shift from other countries to Vietnam. Reforming institutions, particularly the business investment environment, to catch foreign investment inflows. It is an important task.
On January 1, the Government issued Resolution 02/NQ-CP on continuing to perform major tasks and solutions to improve the business environment and improve national competitiveness in 2021. This is the commitment of the Government as well as ministries and local agencies to meet the expectations of businesses and people in order to help businesses grow and compete more effectively in domestic and foreign markets.
Besides, it is necessary to strengthen regional linkages to avoid the situation of the Vietnamese economy being "divided", not taking advantage of the local advantages. This issue has been mentioned for many years, but it is necessary to have a change in mindset, even the concepts of zoning, inter-regional integration, regional integration to handle it.
Finally, we must focus on human resource development. If we do not make adjustments, Vietnam will suffer negative consequences in the next five to ten years when the golden population period has passed. The context of Covid-19 and industrial revolution 4.0 does not change this requirement and does not allow us to "hesitate" anymore.
Thank you madam!
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