Strengthen the capacity of the economy to take opportunities for development

	Promoting digital economy in context of Industry 4.0
	"Appearance" of international economic integration 2019
	In 2019, inflation will still be controlled below 4%.

Minister of Planning and Investment, Nguyen Chi Dung

Dear Minister, in 2019, what are the difficulties and challenges for Vietnam's economy?

- About the world situation in 2019, it is forecasted that there will be many economic fluctuations, the growth rate will slow down, especially with the US and China economies. This will have a great impact on us, because Vietnam's economy has a great openness.

For the domestic economy, competitiveness and labor productivity remain low, economic reforms and structures have attained achievements, but are still only in the early stages... Besides, climate changes, natural disasters... adversely affect people's life and state resources. The private sector has developed strongly, but has not met the requirements of mobilizing social resources for development. These are common difficulties and challenges of the Vietnamese economy in economic development in 2019.

What are the driving forces for economic growth in 2019, and how should these platforms be strengthened to achieve high and sustainable economic growth?

- About the growth motivation of 2019, according to the spirit of the Party and Government, the theme of 2019 is "Discipline, integrity, action, creativity, breakthrough and efficiency". In particular, the word "breakthrough" is an important keyword when we have reached the end of the 5-year journey and prepare to review the 5-year plan and strategy for the next 10 years. Accordingly, we must accelerate and make breakthroughs to prepare for the destination, fulfill the goals and tasks of the 5-year plan, build the foundation for the next 5 years, in the spirit of the General Secretary and the President with their proposal that 2019 must be better than 2018.

The spirit of the Government is to accelerate, speed up the implementation of the tasks, the solution has been clearly stated in the Resolution 01, but I want to emphasize some ideas not only related to 2019 but also for the whole period. Next, we must actively reform administrative procedures, improve the business environment more effectively and substantially to reduce costs for businesses, creating more advantages to promote business development.

Secondly, it must focus on the private sector. Over the past few years, the private economy has developed strongly through the new establishment data of enterprises, attracting investment capital in the huge total social investment. Many projects have certain contributions. But now, there are many difficulties and barriers, there should be policies to solve difficulties, create equality for businesses while accessing to keep up with the market mechanism. This is the spirit of the 5th Party Central Committee’s Resolution set out, so that the private economy will be the driving force for economic development.

The third is the innovation of science and technology, this is a very urgent need for the economy. We have also identified this problem, but we need to have more rapid and strong decisions and actions to research science, innovate and apply to the economy.

Fourthly, it is necessary to be well prepared for integration related to the CPTPP, with the capacity of the economy and capacity of enterprises for receiving and taking advantage of this motivation, and if not well prepared, it will be lost. These are the motivations and breakthroughs and also the key tasks that need to be focused on for implementation in 2019 to achieve higher results than the 2019 targets set by the National Assembly, contributing to the completion of the 5-year-plan and creating a foundation for the new period.

How do you assess the role of innovation and take advantage of this field to promote economic development in 2019 as well as the coming years?

- Innovation is not a separate issue of 2019, but this is a problem of the next stage, when we have certain limitations in the development and application of science and technology, for example, such as low competitiveness, labor productivity, limited ability to connect with FDI enterprises ... All these limitations show the fact that we do not have the technology, have not grasped the technology... Therefore, breaking out of technology-based problems and development are the core and the focus throughout the coming time of any country. In general, Japan, South Korea, Germany, and China are all countries that are making huge investments in technology and they have also made great achievements, giving great ambitions based on innovation. I think that Vietnam is not out of that, we must identify and implement more drastically to apply science and technology in the economic development.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment is being assigned to develop a scheme to build the National Innovation Center. To do this, we have visited and researched the models of good innovation applied in some countries such as Singapore, South Korea, China... There are many models, but we must find out a good and suitable model for practical conditions in Vietnam. We have studied and mentioned this in the Proposal to submit to the Government, which will have to be done to take advantage of good models in the most effective and best way. Currently, in Vietnam, some enterprises have turned to participate in technology development, but mainly spontaneously, the State's support is not strong enough. Hopefully, the State will study and take more specific and strong actions and policies to support businesses in the process of innovation or technology application.

HCM City seeks to improve growth quality, economic competitiveness Experts proposed a number of measures to improve the quality of growth and competitiveness of the economy ...

To sum up, I want to emphasize, we can be completely confident and strong to move forward. We can do it if we choose the right and positive direction, aggressively act, not to be afraid of anything. I am only afraid that we think less or our actions are not drastic and effective. Therefore, we must change our thinking, vision and take drastic action. I believe that, despite many difficulties ahead, if we can do it, Vietnam's economic development in the coming year will be more prosperous, more miraculous than 2018.

Sincerely thank, Minister!