The forum brings together business leaders, scholars, experts, and policy makers at home and abroad.
In her opening remarks, UNDP Resident Representative Ramla Khalidi stressed that technological innovation, energy transition and changes in geopolitical strategy have created historic opportunities for Viet Nam to accelerate its economic transformation, penetrate new markets for higher value-added goods and services and increase the value of its exports. Viet Nam’s ability to capitalize on these opportunities will be critical to its ability to sustain productivity growth at higher income levels – in other words, to avoid the middle-income trap.
Therefore, Vietnam and similar middle-income countries can exploit the possibilities and address the challenges in building technological capacity, based on the importance of science and innovation, and building an innovative and competitive business environment.
Speaking at the Forum, Ms. Tran Thi Hong Minh - Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management - Ministry of Planning and Investment said that from the forums coordinated between organizations and units with the theme of science and technology paving the way for economic potential development, the Central Institute for Economic Management Research has had more information to advise the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Government to issue economic development policies, including fundamental policies in the formation of new economic models in Vietnam such as the Night-time Economic Development Project, the Circular Economic Development Project, the Sharing Economic Development Project, etc.
Initiated by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and UNDP in 2021, the forum “Vietnam Economic Pulse” is considered an annual event designed to create a new foundation and the economic situation and development policies of Vietnam. Ms. Hong Minh hopes that this forum will receive many discussions and dialogues on economic, scientific and technological issues from units, experts and policy makers, etc.
Dr. Nguyen Huu Tho - representative of the research team of the Central Institute for Economic Management presented an overview of Vietnam's economy in 2023 and the main drivers for growth and development, in which he pointed out that Vietnam's economic trend in 2023 is growing quite positively, with good response to capital needs for development and public investment, 6.7% higher and 122.6 trillion higher in absolute terms compared to the same period in 2022. The foreign investment attraction is considered the highest in the past 5 years (in terms of realized capital),...
However, for some production factor markets, operations still face many shortcomings such as the corporate bond market is still sluggish; the real estate market does not have a suitable product structure when there is a surplus in the high segment and a shortage in the lower segment; the electricity market is basically sufficient but there is still a lack of local supply by region in the dry season, the development of "clean" power sources such as wind power, solar power, tidal power is still slow...
Therefore, to promote proactiveness and economic growth in 2024 and the following years, Dr. Huu Tho proposed a number of solutions: Building new economic models such as sharing economy, night-time economy, circular economy; the Party and State's policies and guidelines need to continue to promote local advantages, increase regional linkages in science and technology development; focus on stabilizing the macro economy, controlling inflation, focusing more on economic growth drivers; promoting institutional and business environment improvement; developing infrastructure serving production, goods and services markets and increasing support for production and business entities.
Proposing an important lever to help Vietnam participate in the global value chain, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Truong Thang - Institute of Information Technology - Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology said that Vietnam needs to base on the context and challenges of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution to find ways to build activities as well as science and technology management capacity.
At the same time, in order to develop a science and technology ecosystem to increase the added value of the global value chain, it is necessary to have a long-term vision of technology and develop models of data centers, digital devices, cloud computing, AI and prepare conditions (capital, human resources, incentive mechanisms) suitable for changes in investment flows according to technology trends such as: Big Data, Robots, IoT, Biotechnology, energy and environment, digital transformation, etc.
Within the framework of the Forum, a discussion on “Science and Technology Promote Prosperity” took place, in which, presenting the middle-income trap and technology policy in Southeast Asia, Mr. Jonathan Pincus - Senior Economist of UNDP said that very few countries have escaped the middle-income trap: productivity growth tends to slow down or reverse, including Vietnam and some Southeast Asian countries.
Vietnam has maintained growth since 1990 and continues to be competitive in labor-intensive manufacturing. However, to develop economies of scale and economic agglomeration and escape the middle-income trap, Vietnam and other countries need a lot of capital and basic research on economic policy.
In addition, Vietnam also needs to start foreign direct investment (FDI) and develop licensed technology for the education sector such as for universities, research institutes and domestic enterprises, etc. Along with that, Vietnam needs to coordinate relationships with manufacturing companies at the end of the supply chain to promote the strengths of the Vietnamese scientific community, upgrade technology in the semiconductor industry, etc. to promote growth in export productivity.
At the Forum, educators, scientists and business leaders shared their views on seizing opportunities and attracting investment in advanced technologies such as semiconductors and artificial intelligence, aiming to create a vibrant economic environment in Vietnam in the coming time.
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