This morning, May 23, continuing the program of the 7th session of the 15th National Assembly, the National Assembly discussed in groups the additional assessment of the results of the implementation of the socio-economic development plan and the state budget in 2023; the implementation of the socio-economic development plan and the state budget in the first months of 2024.
Quang Tri Province National Assembly Delegate Ha Sy Dong speaks at the group discussion session - Photo: NL
Businesses and people still face many difficulties.
Speaking at the discussion session, delegate Ha Sy Dong, member of the National Assembly's Finance and Budget Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, commented: According to the Government's report, the assessment results are quite clear on the issue of economic recovery in terms of growth and growth policy, but the difficulties and challenges are somewhat vague and not comprehensive. The Government should highlight the issues that emerged between the two sessions, emphasizing the issues that require the National Assembly to make decisions right at this session. From the above perspective, the delegate agreed with many issues raised by the Economic Committee in the review report, especially those that need to be assessed more carefully, for example, regarding the quality of growth, the Government's report highlighted that GDP growth in the first quarter of 2024 reached 5.66%, the highest in the period 2020 - 2023.
The delegate said that this was a great effort in the context of the economy facing many difficulties, however, he suggested that the National Assembly look at some other data such as: in the first 4 months of the year, 86.4 thousand enterprises withdrew from the market, an average of 21.6 thousand enterprises withdrew from the market per month. This is the first time in the past 5 years that the number of enterprises entering and re-entering the market in the first 4 months of the year was lower than the number of enterprises withdrawing from the market; weak consumption of goods is due to slow growth in disposable income in the context of inflationary pressure showing signs of increasing... These things show that businesses and people still face many difficulties, which need to be viewed more thoroughly.
Gold price "dancing" is due to interest groups?
The delegate also raised the issue of the "dancing" of gold prices and the instability of the gold market from international to domestic, which has actually caused negative and unexpected impacts on the foreign exchange market and the USD/VND exchange rate. World and domestic gold prices have increased sharply since the beginning of 2024, reaching an all-time peak, when demand increased sharply mainly due to geopolitical risks and possibly partly due to speculative activities in the chaotic context. Currently, the world gold price is over 2,400 USD/ounce, equivalent to an increase of more than 20% compared to the beginning of the year, accordingly, the domestic price of SJC gold bars is around 91 million VND/tael, equivalent to an increase of 24% compared to the beginning of the year.
In the past 2 years, the domestic gold price has always been 15 to 20 million VND/tael higher than the converted international gold price. This has made the domestic gold market more sensitive, stimulating speculation and smuggling, strongly affecting the free exchange rate and indirectly putting pressure on the official exchange rate.
Delegates wondered about who and where the sudden increase in demand for gold in the country came from? And they thought that it did not come from the majority of ordinary people due to the simple reason that this is an alternative investment channel to the channel of saving money in banks with no longer attractive interest rates? Is this mainly due to a group of interests with illegal acts such as asset dissipation, speculation causing market disorder? Through monitoring information and reading the Government's reports, we have not found an answer to this question.
Support businesses to access credit policies
At the same time, the delegate suggested that credit growth should be viewed more realistically. In the recent period, bank credit growth has been weak (by the end of April, it had only increased by less than 2%). The delegate also paid special attention to the phenomenon of figures always increasing suddenly at the end of the year and quarter, then falling quickly again and agreed with the reasons pointed out in reports from the Government and the State Bank, including: slow recovery of production and business, causing weak credit demand; high business risks, rapidly increasing bad debts, pressure to set up large credit risk provisions; high capital mobilization costs, making it difficult for banks to deeply reduce lending interest rates... From there, the National Assembly and the Government were requested to consider supporting businesses to access credit policies.
Proposal to implement the Land Law from July 1, 2024
Reflecting on some difficulties and problems of localities while waiting for the Land Law to take effect, delegates suggested that the National Assembly consider the implementation time of the Land Law starting from July 1, 2024 to pave the way for economic development.
Regarding the proposed solutions for economic development of Quang Tri province, the delegates suggested that the National Assembly and the Government pay attention to applying special mechanisms in addition to the Investment Law under the public-private partnership method in implementing the Cam Lo - Lao Bao expressway project (length 56 km, investment capital of 13.9 trillion VND) with the mechanism of 70% state capital, 30% enterprise capital and the Lao Bao - Densavan cross-border economic - trade zone project proposed by Quang Tri province and Savannakhet province (Laos) to the Governments of Vietnam and Laos to soon sign a bilateral agreement to exploit the potential of the East-West Economic Corridor, creating a premise for Quang Tri and Savannakhet provinces to break through, move forward, contributing to the economic development of the Central Coast region and the Mekong sub-region countries.
Nguyen Thi Ly
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