15th NA's 6th session: PM Pham Minh Chinh delivers report on socio-economic development

15th NA's 6th session: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh addresses the opening sitting of the 15th-tenure National Assembly's sixth session on October 23, 2023. (Photo: WVR))

The Prime Minister made the remark while reporting on the implementation results of the socio-economich development plan for 2023 and the draft plan for 2024 at the opening sitting of the 15th-tenure National Assembly (NA)’s sixth session.

The Prime Minister highlighted the continued socio-economic recovery, noting that the country has basically fulfilled overall targets and gained many important results in different fields, and remains a bright spot of the global economy.

During the first nine months, inflation was kept under control, growth promoted, and major balanced guaranteed. The gross domestic product (GDP) grew at 5.33% in the third quarter and 4.24% during the nine months. The consumer price index (CPI) increased 3.16%. The monetary and foreign exchange market was basically stable while interest rates declined. Foreign trade gradually went up month on month, with a nine-month trade surplus of nearly 22 billion USD. Energy and food security was safeguarded while the labour market bounced back.

He reported that cultural and social aspects have given attention and investment as seen in the full and timely implementation of policies supporting revolution contributors, guaranteeing social security, and assisting people and businesses. The rate of poor households as calculated according to multidimensional standards has been brought by 1.1% to 2.93%. While the quality of general, higher, and vocational education has continued to improve, human resources connected with science - technology, innovation, digital transformation, green economy, digital economy, and digital society has also been further developed. Vietnam ranks 46th among the 132 economies in the Global Innovation Index 2023, up two places from last year.

15th NA's 6th session: Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh delivers report on socio-economic development. (Photo: WVR)

Prime Minister Chinh also underlined the maintained focus on ethnic minority, religious and belief policies; reforms in the building and perfection of laws, mechanisms and policies; firmly maintained socio-political stability, territorial integrity, political security and social order and safety; and vibrant diplomatic and international integration activities which have obtained significant and historic results, creating new chances for boosting national development and raising Vietnam’s role, stature and prestige in the international arena.

However, there are shortcomings and problems needing more efforts to be addressed. In particular, economic growth has yet to meet the target, macro-economic stability hasn’t been truly steady due to high external pressure, production and business activities still face numerous difficulties, and the implementation of some contents of the national target programmes and the socio-economic recovery and development programme remains slow. Some mechanisms, policies, and legal regulations are still contradictory with or overlapping each other, according to the Government’s report.

Prime Minister Chinh emphasized the problems mainly on the fast, complex and unpredictable developments in the regional and international situations. Meanwhile, he added, Vietnam is a developing country, and its economy is still in the transition process and has a low starting point, modest size, big openness, along with limited competitiveness and resilience to external shocks. The implementation of laws and policies is also a weak point.

For the remaining months of 2023, the Government will continue giving priority to promoting growth, keeping macro-economic stability, controlling inflation, guaranteeing major economic balances, taking measures for strongly boosting growth drivers (investment, consumption and export), and grasping opportunities in the domestic and international markets during the year-end and New Year holidays.

It will speed up the approval of plans and disbursement of capital for public investment, the socio-economic recovery and development programme, and the three national target programmes. It will press on with tackling production and business difficulties and strive to achieve the highest possible results for 2023, including a GDP growth rate of over 5% and inflation of 3.5 - 4%, Prime Minister Chinh went on.

The Government predicted that in 2024, the world situation will remain complicated and unpredictable while the country’s economy will continue to suffer from “dual negative impacts” of adverse external factors and internal shortcomings.

It set 15 main targets for next year, including GDP growth of 6 - 6.5%, per capita GDP of 4,700 - 4,730 USD, the processing and manufacturing industry making up 24.1 - 24.2% of GDP, a CPI increase of 4 - 4.5%, labour productivity up 4.8 - 5.3%, the rate of trained manpower at about 69%, an unemployment rate of less than 4% in urban areas, the rate of poor households down by over 1%, the State budget revenue up about 5%, and the State budget overspending at under 4% of GDP.

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