14th National Party Congress: Ministry of Industry and Trade commits to a shift from 'management' to 'facilitation', to support businesses
WVR - On the afternoon of January 21, on behalf of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Party Secretary, Acting Minister of Industry and Trade Le Manh Hung presented a speech on “Developing Vietnam's Industry and Trade: Self-reliance, Connectivity, Modernization, Green Transition, Digital Transformation, and Effective Integration into Global Production and Supply Chains”.
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| Party Secretary, Acting Minister of Industry and Trade Le Manh Hung presents a discussion titled “Developing Vietnam's Industry and Trade: Self-reliance, Connectivity, Modernization, Green Transition, Digital Transformation, and Effective Integration into Global Production and Supply Chains”. (Source: VNA) |
Expressing strong agreement with the political report and documents presented by the 13th Party Central Committee to the Congress, Acting Minister Le Manh Hung emphasized: During the 2021-2025 term, our economy has steadfastly overcome challenges, achieving significant, comprehensive results with many outstanding highlights as mentioned in the political report.
In the nation's overall achievements, the Ministry of Industry and Trade has made positive contributions as a strategic pillar, one of the main drivers promoting the country's socio-economic development towards self-reliance, connectivity, modernization, green transition, digital transformation, and deep, effective international integration.
Notably, industrial production has clearly recovered, achieving a decent growth rate, averaging 6.1% per year, with the processing and manufacturing industries growing at an average of 6.9% per year, driving economic growth and promoting the country's industrialization and modernization. The localization rate has improved; some key industries have successfully integrated, affirming their position in the global value chain.
The energy sector has developed robustly, rising to the top in Southeast Asia in terms of the power system scale; national energy security is ensured, basically meeting the requirements of socio-economic development and people's livelihoods. Import and export remain a bright spot, with impressive growth at an average rate of 10.9% per year; the trade surplus is consistently maintained at a high level, contributing to foreign exchange reserves and stabilizing macroeconomic indicators.
The domestic market has developed positively with an average growth rate of 7.7% per year, serving as a "support" helping the economy stand firm and recover quickly from external shocks, becoming a driving force for economic growth; e-commerce has developed strongly, with an average growth rate of over 20% per year, driving the digital economy and leading digital transformation in enterprises.
International economic integration has been implemented decisively, synchronously, and effectively, accessing preferential export markets through 17 Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), contributing to boosting exports, attracting foreign investment, enhancing competitiveness, and promoting economic restructuring towards modernization.
However, according to Comrade Le Manh Hung, alongside the aforementioned achievements, our industry and trade sector still faces some difficulties and challenges that need to be addressed as pointed out in the political report. Specifically, technological self-reliance, added value, and labor productivity in the industry are not high; the development of foundational industries and source technologies remains limited, not meeting requirements; the transition to "green" and "smart" production is slow. Energy infrastructure has not kept pace with the development of renewable energy sources; the power source structure between regions is unbalanced, and the development of base power sources is slow.
Export activities rely heavily on imported materials and the FDI sector; export markets and products are not diverse, with low added value. Trade and logistics infrastructure is not synchronized; logistics costs are high. These existing issues stem from both objective and subjective reasons from the global situation and domestic factors.
According to Comrade Le Manh Hung, our country is entering a new era – the era of science and technology, innovation, green transition, digital transformation, and deep international integration.
In this context, to continue promoting industrial and trade development, contributing to the comprehensive success of the 14th Party Congress Resolution, and making a worthy contribution to the country's development in the new era, the Party Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Trade is determined to effectively focus on several key tasks:
First, perfecting institutions and policies: Institutionalizing the Party's guidelines on socio-economic development, promoting industrialization and modernization into synchronized, feasible policies and effectively organizing their implementation. Promoting "dual transition" – combining green transition with ensuring national energy security and digital transformation – as a strategic breakthrough, creating a favorable investment and business environment, removing bottlenecks, mobilizing resources; leveraging traditional growth drivers and creating new growth drivers.
Second, restructuring industry and trade associated with science, technology, and innovation: Renewing thinking, promoting the restructuring of industry and trade towards enhancing productivity, quality, efficiency, and competitiveness. The goal is to increase the proportion of processing and manufacturing industries to 28-30%, using science and technology, innovation, digital transformation, and green transition as the main drivers, focusing on developing priority foundational industries to master technology, and emerging industries. Building several large domestic enterprises capable of leading key sectors with competitive advantages, promoting industrialization and modernization. Developing synchronized, modern energy, industrial, trade infrastructure, and logistics centers towards green and smart.
Third, developing self-reliant supply chains, consolidating, and developing domestic production and supply chains to enhance economic self-reliance. Implement policies to support Vietnamese enterprises in connecting with FDI enterprises, participating more deeply in the value chains of FDI corporations and enterprises, thereby increasing localization rates and reducing dependence on external supply sources. Implement mechanisms to order domestic enterprises to participate in national key projects.
Fourth, deep, effective international integration: Proactively and actively integrating into the international economy; welcoming investment shifts into key sectors. Enhancing the effectiveness of the early warning system and the capacity to use trade defense tools to protect domestic production. Supporting localities and enterprises to effectively utilize FTAs; accelerating negotiations to upgrade existing FTAs and sign new FTAs with potential partners, expanding development space. Diversifying supply sources and export markets to avoid dependence on a few partners. Innovating and enhancing the effectiveness of trade promotion, supply-demand connection; strongly developing e-commerce and the digital economy.
Fifth, digital transformation, administrative reform: Vigorously promoting digital transformation in the industrial and trade sectors, creating breakthroughs in development. Accelerating administrative procedure reform and public service reform; expanding the provision of online public services, effectively implementing the one-stop-shop mechanism. Continuing to review, cut, and simplify procedures and business conditions, reducing compliance costs for enterprises.
Comrade Le Manh Hung also emphasized that to successfully implement the key tasks set out, the Party Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposes the following solutions for the development of the industry and trade sector in the coming time:
First, continue to lead, direct the completion and propose the elevation of major guidelines on national industrial and trade development towards self-reliance, modernization, green transition, digital transformation; identifying processing, manufacturing industries, and energy as important material foundations of an independent, self-reliant economy.
Second, strongly renewing the thinking in law-making and implementation towards development facilitation. Implement controlled pilot mechanisms to promptly remove bottlenecks, liberate resources; based on that, summarize and replicate suitable models.
Third, focus state resources and mobilize social resources to develop synchronized energy, industrial, logistics, and trade infrastructure; create conditions for the private sector to gradually participate in investing and operating key infrastructure stages, based on ensuring system security and national interests.
Fourth, steadfastly pursue the policy of enhancing the capacity of domestic enterprises with synchronized solutions; consider this a strategic requirement to consolidate the self-reliance capacity of the economy.
Fifth, promote international economic integration in a proactive, substantive, and effective manner; link international economic integration with enhancing the self-reliance capacity of the economy, while paying attention to the sustainability of growth.
“The Ministry of Industry and Trade commits to shifting its mindset from 'management' to 'facilitation', accompanying businesses, proactively unlocking resources, turning challenges from the trends of greening and digitalization into breakthrough opportunities, contributing to the overall development of the country,” Acting Minister Le Manh Hung emphasized.
