Vietnam's economy 2023: Consistent with the highest growth target
WVR - In 2023, Vietnam’s economy has been through three quarters of development in the context of decelerating global growth and a number of world conflicts weighing on economic activities.
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| Vietnam's economy 2023: Consistent with the highest growth target. (Photo: Linh Chi) |
Economic diplomacy flourished
The data from General Statistics Office (GSO) (Ministry of Planning and Investment) shows that national economy in October and the first 10 months in 2023 recorded various bright spots in industrial production, investment, and consumptions, etc.
Also according to the GSO, the growth rate of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first 9 months of 2023 reached 4.24% and tends to increase gradually over time. The third quarter reached 5.33%, the highest compared to the first and second quarters (3.3%, 4.1%, respectively).
With such growth momentum, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasted that Vietnam's GDP growth would reach about 5.8% in 2023, the highest in Southeast Asia (Philippines: 5.7%; Indonesia: 5.0%; Malaysia: 4.5%, Thailand: 3.5%, etc.).
Sharing with reporters on the economic situation in Vietnam, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Deputy General Secretary, Head Of Legal Department, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), member of Science Committee of Standing Committee of the National Assembly, affirmed that the recent period has shown great efforts of the National Assembly, Government, government apparatus at all levels and the business community.
Mr. Dau Anh Tuan admitted: “Perhaps, the greatest success when mentioning about 2023 is the country has maintained stable macroeconomy. The growth rate is quite good, inflation is low, exchange rates are well controlled, and the macroeconomic balance of the economy amid the fluctuations of the world.
High inflation in many economies in the world has affected severly to the people. The effort of maintaining low inflation created the belief from domestic and foreign business community about Vietnam’s very positive business medium and long-term vision in time to come”.
According to VCCI Deputy General Secretary, 2023 is an exciting year when Vietnam has prospered in external activities in general and economic diplomacy in particular. The business community highly appreciates Vietnam's foreign policy, especially the fact that Vietnam has upgraded its relationship with the United States to Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. In addition, Vietnam also continues to further promote relations with China. The US and China are the two largest economies in the world and also important business markets.
At the same time, Vietnam has signed and implemented 16 Free Trade Agreements (FTA). “There are few countries like Vietnam where entrepreneurs can do business and easily export their products to Europe, Northeast Asian countries, China, Russia, etc”, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan said.
Potential worrying signals
Along with the world's general difficulties, it cannot be denied that 2023 will be a year with a very high rate of businesses leaving the market, import and export decreased, and industrial production would tend to decrease.
Mr. Dau Anh Tuan cited that in the first 10 months of 2023, there were 146.6 thousand businesses withdrawing from the market, an increase of 20% over the same period last year. Also in 10 months, total import and export turnover of goods reached 557.95 billion USD, down 9.6% over the same period last year.
Besides, 2023 signals a very successful year in attracting foreign investment but also has many potentially worrying signals. The highlight is the electricity shortage in May-June 2023 in the North of Vietnam. The lack of power source has led to power cuts in factories, industrial parks and production facilities in the Northern region, causing great loss to businesses.
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| Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Deputy General Secretary, Head of Legal Department, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Science Committee member of Standing Committee of the National Assembly. (Photo: Quochoi.vn) |
There are also a number of hot issues in 2023 that greatly affected the business community and investment and business activities. For example, the issue of fire prevention and fighting standards causes many investment and construction projects to be delayed, incurring many costs, or the problem of delayed VAT refunds, pushing businesses in many industries such as wood, rubber, cassava, electronics, etc. into difficulties, struggling with lack of cash flow.
In the coming time, to minimize the above difficulties and continue to increase the competitiveness of Vietnam's business environment, Mr. Dau Anh Tuan said that Vietnam needs to carry out many solutions such as continuing to improve the quality of infrastructure and human resources, promoting domestic industrial production, etc. In particular, focusing on two main groups of solutions of reducing business costs and reforming the quality of legal regulations and law enforcement.
Strive to achieve the highest growth rate
Regarding economic growth goals, at the regular Government meeting in October 2023, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent a clear message in executive direction to strive to achieve the proposed highest level of development goals of socio-economic development.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh presented Government’s report at the 6th Session, National Assembly session XV on result of the 2023 implementing socio-economic plan clarifies that Vietnam’s economic development in 2023 reached more than 5%. To achieve this goal, the fourth quarter of 2023 economic growth needs to reach 7% or more.
Prof. Dr. Ngo Thang Loi, Executive Lecturer of National Economic University said that the above growth rate is a huge pressure on the economy. To accomplish this goal, Vietnam needs to focus on key points such as the speed of recovery of industrial production, especially processing and manufacturing technology; increasing demand in Vietnam's major and key export markets; the breakthrough in tourism activities and boosting domestic consumption.
To reach that breakthrough, Prof. Dr. Ngo Thang Loi realized that the Government needs to continue to stabilize the economic, political and social situation, create confidence for investors, and promote the effectiveness of fiscal policies (support businesses and people such as: deferment, tax reduction, etc.); monetary policy (debt restructuring, interest rate and service fee reduction, preferential credit packages) to support businesses in easily accessing credit capital; policies to promote public investment, remove difficulties and obstacles for the land, real estate, construction, tourism, capital markets, etc.
For particular solutions, according to Prof. Dr. Ngo Thang Loi, firstly, it is necessary to promote domestic production, and consumption by promptly removing difficulties and obstacles for businesses, and effectively supporting businesses that lack capital while prices of input materials rising or have difficulties in product consumption; having solutions to support a number of industries and fields that are adversely affected by the decline in world market demand such as: leather, footwear, and textiles. sewing, manufacturing and wood processing.
Secondly, effectively carrying out measures to promote import and export, support businesses to take advantage of commitments in signed FTAs, and increase the speed of customs clearance of export and import goods at Vietnam-China border gate.
Thirdly, continuing to remove difficulties for businesses, including foreign-invested enterprises in Vietnam, and encouraging new green and low-emission investment methods and business models joined by foreign investment enterprises and private investment.
Fourthly, accelerating public investment progress, prioritizing projects that are about to be completed, and soon putting into use large-scale and potential projects to maintain and expand production and business capacity.
