Sharing with TG&VN reporters, Director General of the General Statistics Office (Ministry of Planning and Investment) Nguyen Thi Huong commented that if there are no major fluctuations, Vietnam will achieve its 2024 growth target of around 6-6.5%.
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| Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong, Director General of the General Statistics Office. (Photo: General Statistics Office) |
How do you assess the economic growth picture in the second quarter of 2024 and the first 6 months of 2024?
Vietnam's economy in the second quarter of 2024 continued to flourish after the growth momentum in the first quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of 2024 increased by 6.93% over the same period last year.
In the first 6 months of 2024, GDP increased by 6.42%, of which the industrial and construction sectors recovered positively, especially the key processing and manufacturing industries; the agricultural, forestry, fishery and service sectors maintained stable growth.
In terms of production : The agriculture, forestry and fishery sector in the first 6 months of the year has proactively overcome difficulties, aiming for stable growth. This sector has demonstrated its role as a pillar of the economy, both meeting domestic demand, ensuring food security, and making significant contributions to export activities.
Especially in the second quarter of 2024, agricultural, forestry and fishery exports grew quite well, showing a positive change in consumer demand in Vietnam's major partner economies.
The growth rates in the second quarter and six months of sectors in sector I were as follows: agriculture increased by 2.91% and 3.15%, forestry increased by 6.04% and 5.34%, and fisheries increased by 4.05% and 3.76%.
Meanwhile, the industrial and construction sector maintained its recovery momentum in the first 6 months of the year, achieving good growth. Especially in the second quarter of 2024, industrial production recovered positively on the basis of the relatively low growth of the same period in 2023 (0.86%), with added value reaching 8.55% over the same period last year.
In the first 6 months of 2024, the added value of the industrial sector reached 7.54% over the same period last year, of which the processing and manufacturing sector increased by 8.67%. In particular, the import of goods increased again, ensuring the supply of raw materials, fuels and machinery and equipment for domestic production.
The construction industry grew by 7.07% in the second quarter of 2024 and 7.34% in the first half of the year. The acceleration of disbursement of public investment capital, along with private and foreign investment, has had a positive spillover effect, boosting production activities of enterprises and infrastructure construction contractors.
The service sector continued to maintain good growth in the first 6 months of the year. Some market service sectors such as transportation and warehousing; accommodation and catering services grew well in the first 6 months of the year, with a higher growth rate than the same period in years before the Covid-19 pandemic such as 2018-2019 due to support from the strong increase in travel demand during the peak tourist season months.
In terms of consumption: Final consumption had a fairly good growth rate in the first 6 months of the year, with the increase in the second quarter and 6 months being 6.58% and 5.78% respectively, of which final consumption of households increased by 7.06% and 6.17%, final consumption of the State increased by 3.37% and 3.2%.
This shows that people have more demand for spending on sightseeing, traveling, and vacationing, and basic spending as well as spending on personal hobbies are more open after a long period of pressure from the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to changes in behavior and consumer habits.
Exports continued to grow strongly in the context of global trade difficulties. Exports of goods and services continued to grow strongly in the second quarter with an increase of 12.70%, and the overall growth in the first 6 months was 14.81%.
With this result, the export of goods and services continues to be an important growth driver in the second quarter and the first 6 months of 2024. Vietnam's total import and export turnover of goods in the first 6 months of the year reached 368.53 billion USD, up 15.7% over the same period last year, of which exports reached 190.08 billion USD, up 14.5%, the trade balance of goods in the first 6 months of the year had a trade surplus of 11.63 billion USD.
| People have more spending needs on sightseeing, traveling, and vacations. Basic spending as well as spending on personal hobbies are more open after a long period of pressure from the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to changes in behavior and consumer habits. |
How has the economy been doing over the past 6 months, madam?
In 6 months, the economy has had favorable points such as:
Firstly, the Government, the Prime Minister, ministries, branches and localities have closely monitored and grasped the situation, proactively developed flexible, timely, focused and decisive response and adaptation solutions to emerging issues, resolved many difficulties and ensured harmony between short-term situation handling and medium- and long-term development.
Second, demand in major markets is improving, demand for goods is increasing, many large domestic enterprises have new orders, so domestic production activities are promoted and import and export activities are bustling again.
Third, public investment continues to receive attention and the disbursement progress has been accelerated since the first months of the year, promoting and attracting good growth in foreign direct investment (FDI), helping to increase capacity, expand domestic production, create jobs, improve income for workers... at the same time, creating a foundation for infrastructure to serve rapid and sustainable development in the long term.
Fourth , domestic demand has gradually recovered, although not as expected, thanks to stimulus measures; the Government is supporting households and businesses by extending the deadline for payment of value-added tax, corporate income tax, personal income tax and land rent; reducing environmental protection tax by 50% since the beginning of the year; at the same time, reducing VAT rate from 10% to 8% in the first 6 months of the year and submitting to the National Assembly for approval to continue reducing VAT by 2% in the last 6 months of the year.
What about the difficulties?
Besides favorable factors, the economy also faces difficult factors such as:
Firstly , domestic inflationary pressure: Domestic price levels are still under control but are also putting pressure on the domestic price index due to price increases of some commodities. At the same time, concerns about geopolitical tensions, the conflict in the Red Sea, the Russia-Ukraine conflict have caused commodity prices, gasoline prices, transportation costs to increase, etc., leading to increased production costs.
Second, exchange rate risks along with increased imports to serve production will put pressure on input material prices.
Third , the internal strength of the economy is not strong, although manufacturing and processing enterprises have grown well, the level of sustainability is still limited and uneven among industries. At the same time, difficulties in production are still latent because domestic and international demand has not fully recovered; small and medium enterprises still face many difficulties in accessing loans to serve production and business.
Fourth, the real estate market has shown signs of recovery, but the most difficult issues are the processes and procedures for developing social housing projects. In addition, real estate businesses continue to face difficulties in liquidity and cash flow.
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| The economic growth rate in the first 6 months of the year reached 6.42%, higher than the upper limit growth target set in Resolution 01 of 5.5%-6%, which is a positive sign. (Photo: Gia Thanh) |
Based on the economic growth results in the first 6 months of 2024, how do you assess the ability to achieve the growth target for the whole year of 2024 approved by the National Assembly?
According to the General Statistics Office, the economic growth in the first 6 months of the year reached 6.42%, higher than the upper limit growth target set in Resolution 01 of 5.5% - 6%, which is a positive sign for the growth target for the whole year 2024.
This result shows the effectiveness of the efforts, closeness, and timeliness in the management of policies of the Government, State, Ministries and the efforts and determination of localities, businesses and people on the path of economic recovery and development.
To assess the annual growth target, the General Statistics Office has some comments on the domestic economic situation in the last 6 months of the year as follows:
Firstly, the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector will have more favorable conditions in the last 6 months of the year when the weather enters the rainy season, drought and saltwater intrusion are no longer a concern for agricultural producers.
Second , in the industrial and construction sector, with the recovery of the world economy, the industry in the first 6 months of the year had remarkable growth, which is a premise for growth in the last 6 months of the year.
According to the survey results, the business trend of the processing and manufacturing industry in the third quarter of 2024 is more positive than the second quarter of 2024, with 40.7% of enterprises assessing it better and 42.2% of enterprises remaining stable, which is a good signal for the recovery of the processing and manufacturing industry in the coming months.
Third, the service industry has the opportunity to develop in the last 6 months of the year when the third quarter continues to be the peak tourist season, exploiting tourism activities well will spread strongly to the market service industry. In addition, there are long holidays, the back-to-school season and peak shopping demand at the end of the year will have a positive impact on the service industry.
Fourth , domestic consumption is still an important factor driving economic growth with the advantage of a consumer market of more than 100 million people. Some factors stimulating domestic consumption in the last 6 months of the year such as: The policy of reducing VAT by 2% until the end of the year for some groups of goods and services is being submitted to the National Assembly for approval; the policy of increasing basic salary from July 1 will bring many meanings to the team of cadres, civil servants, and public employees, contributing to improving living standards, increasing consumption and labor productivity, contributing to GDP growth in the last 6 months of the year.
Fifth, Vietnam's international trade is showing a strong upward trend due to the gradual improvement in world demand and the recovery of domestic production. Vietnam's exports are forecast to continue to grow well in the final months of the year.
| Some factors stimulating domestic consumption in the last 6 months of the year such as: The policy of reducing VAT by 2% until the end of the year for some groups of goods and services is being submitted to the National Assembly for approval; the policy of increasing basic salary from July 1 will bring many meanings to the team of cadres, civil servants and public employees, contributing to improving living standards, increasing consumption and labor productivity, contributing to GDP growth in the last 6 months of the year. |
Sixth , public investment continues to be promoted, accelerated and there are many solutions to effectively use public investment capital in the last 6 months of the year to complete the target, in order to remove difficulties, lead, promote, attract investment from other economic sectors, create jobs, contribute to strengthening social security, as well as create a foundation for infrastructure to serve rapid and sustainable development in the long term.
Based on developments in the world situation, domestic economic performance in the first 6 months of the year and some comments on the economic situation in the last 6 months of the year, if there are no major fluctuations, I believe that Vietnam will achieve its 2024 growth target of around 6-6.5%.
What is the solution to promote economic growth in the last 6 months of the year, madam?
To achieve the above-mentioned growth rate of about 6.5%, there are still many difficulties and challenges. It is necessary to continue implementing drastic solutions to maintain the stability of the economic - political - social situation; ensure macro balances; control inflation well; promote the effectiveness and flexibility of fiscal and monetary policies; resolutely and synchronously implement the solutions proposed in the Government's Resolutions and the Prime Minister's Directives on economic development in the last 6 months of the year.
In the last months of the year, I propose the following specific solutions:
From the production perspective: Industries and sectors need to closely follow the production and business situation to proactively respond to arising risks, focusing on policies to remove difficulties and obstacles, freeing up resources for the business sector and production and business establishments, especially the processing and manufacturing industries and market service industries; The electricity industry ensures adequate supply for production and consumption.
Strengthening the connection between circulation and production, promoting chain linkage to connect supply and demand; ensuring the distribution of goods associated with quality management and food safety; Strongly promoting the chain model linking agricultural development with industry and export.
Continue to seek and actively expand product consumption markets, proactively apply science and technology to improve product quality and competitiveness. Build product distribution channels, expand consumption on e-commerce platforms, thereby promoting domestic consumption and export.
Continue to promote the application of high technology and digital technology to improve labor productivity, create new products to help the supporting and auxiliary industries develop. Strongly promote new growth drivers.
Ensure domestic supply; stabilize exports; closely follow market developments to determine demand for goods, in order to minimize business inventories, contributing to controlling inflation, especially when the basic salary increase policy begins to be implemented on July 1, 2024.
From the perspective of use: Speed up the progress of disbursement of public investment capital; especially closely inspect and supervise the effective implementation of public investment capital to ensure the completion of goals and spread to other economic sectors.
Prioritize investment stimulation in projects that are about to be completed, quickly put into use large-scale projects with potential, directly contributing to maintaining and expanding the production and business capacity of enterprises and the economy.
Develop and strongly implement policies and programs to promote household consumption. Develop and diversify distribution channels for goods and services, enhance the application of information technology and digital transformation in the provision of goods and services to meet people's needs; Promote the implementation of activities to stimulate domestic consumption in localities with specific and advantageous products.
For import and export, continue to innovate trade promotion activities, take full advantage of opportunities and recovery trends of markets to boost exports, make good use of and continue to accelerate negotiations, signing, and promoting bilateral and multilateral trade agreements to expand the output market for Vietnamese products in the last 6 months of the year.
Thank you!
Source: https://baoquocte.vn/kinh-te-viet-nam-them-dau-hieu-tich-cuc-cho-muc-tieu-tang-truong-ca-nam-2024-277300.html
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