On the morning of January 5, the Prime Minister chaired a national online conference to review the work of the Government and local authorities in 2023 and deploy tasks for 2024.
Growth among the highest in the world
In his opening speech, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that looking back at 2023, the overall situation in the world and the region is evolving rapidly, complicatedly, and unpredictably, with opportunities, advantages, difficulties, and challenges intertwined, but with more difficulties and challenges.
Domestically, the economy is subject to the "double impact" of adverse external factors and internal limitations and shortcomings that have lasted for many years, which have become more evident after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, our country is a developing country, with a low starting point, an economy in transition, modest in scale, highly open, limited in resilience and competitiveness - a small external change can also have a large impact and influence on the internal.
Despite the challenges, the socio-economic situation in 2023 continues to show a positive recovery trend, with each month being better than the previous month, each quarter higher than the previous quarter, with GDP increasing by 5.05% for the whole year, among the highest growth groups in the region and the world, raising the size of the economy to about 430 billion USD.
Overview of the conference (Photo: VGP).
The macro economy is basically stable, inflation and public debt are under control, growth is promoted, and major balances are ensured. The average annual consumer price index increased by 3.25% (about 4.5% lower than the set target). The money and foreign exchange markets are basically stable, and interest rates have decreased by about 2% compared to the end of 2022.
The agricultural sector is a bright spot, continuing to be a solid pillar of the economy, increasing by 3.83% in 2023, the highest in the past 10 years. The service sector increased by 6.82%, total retail sales of goods and consumer service revenue increased by 9.6%. Industry recovered rapidly each quarter, increasing by 3.02% for the whole year.
State budget revenue exceeded the estimate by about 8.12% while nearly VND 194,000 billion in taxes, fees, charges and land rents were exempted, reduced and extended; at the same time, revenue was increased, expenditure was saved, and about VND 560,000 billion was set aside, ensuring sufficient resources for salary reform in the 3 years of 2024-2026.
Accordingly, realized FDI capital still reached 23.18 billion USD; disbursement of public investment capital is forecast to reach 95% of the plan, the absolute figure is higher than 146,000 billion VND; state budget revenue exceeds 8.2%; all social targets are achieved and exceeded. Total import-export turnover for the whole year reached 683 billion USD; trade surplus is about 28 billion USD (the highest ever).
Many prestigious international organizations highly appreciate the results and prospects of our country's economy. Fitch Ratings upgraded the country's long-term credit rating to BB+ (from BB), with a "Stable" outlook. Asia-Pacific has only 2 out of 62 countries upgraded.
“We have basically achieved the general goals set out to stabilize the macro-economy, control inflation, promote growth, ensure major balances of the economy; social security and people's lives have been improved…”, said the Prime Minister .
Restructuring the economy
Besides the achieved results, the Prime Minister also emphasized that there are still limitations, inadequacies, difficulties and challenges.
Accordingly, 5 socio-economic targets did not meet the plan; inflationary pressure and bad debt tended to increase (especially in the context of high global inflation, devaluation of many currencies, and strong fluctuations in crude oil and food prices).
Difficulties and bottlenecks in production and business, especially in export, market, capital access, problems in real estate markets, corporate bonds, etc.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh gives a directive speech (Photo: VGP).
In 2024, the Prime Minister suggested focusing on analyzing, evaluating, and forecasting the situation in 2024 to see if there are any new issues, differences, or difficulties compared to 2023.
Along with that is the analysis and evaluation of key management directions to prioritize promoting growth, ensuring macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation, and ensuring major balances of the economy.
“How to manage monetary and fiscal policies in combination with other policies to both promote traditional growth drivers (investment, consumption, export) and promote new growth drivers,” the Prime Minister suggested.
Also in 2024, the Prime Minister emphasized the importance of implementing strategic breakthroughs (the work of building and perfecting institutions to achieve better results, more breakthroughs, more efficiency, on schedule and with higher quality; continuing to innovate administrative procedure reform, decentralization, delegation of power, and planning work.
Speed up the progress of important national infrastructure projects, strategic infrastructure, mobilize more resources for strategic infrastructure; solutions to create breakthrough changes in education, training, vocational training, increase labor productivity...).
“Restructuring the economy more substantially and effectively, promoting the restructuring of weak credit institutions, promptly resolving remaining weak and loss-making projects and enterprises; promoting regional linkages is a new and important driving force to promote the development of the six socio-economic regions according to the Politburo’s Resolutions…”, the Prime Minister said .
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