According to the Ministry of Finance, total state budget revenue in 2023 is estimated at 1.75 quadrillion VND, while budget expenditure is estimated at 1.73 quadrillion VND. Of which, regular expenditure is up to 1.05 quadrillion VND, accounting for about 61% of total budget expenditure.

According to the 2022 state budget settlement report (the most recent budget period settled by the National Assembly), the 2022 budget revenue is more than 1.82 million billion VND. Meanwhile, budget expenditure is 1.75 million billion VND.

Notably, the majority of budget expenditures are also for regular expenditures. Specifically, regular expenditures in 2022 will amount to VND1,030 trillion, accounting for about 59% of total budget expenditures.

Regular expenditure is the expenditure task of the state budget to ensure the operation of the state apparatus, political organizations, socio-political organizations, support the operation of other organizations and carry out the regular tasks of the State on socio-economic development, ensuring national defense and security.

In recent years, regular expenditure has always been around 1 million billion VND, accounting for about 60-65% of total budget expenditure. The remaining amount is for development investment and repayment of principal and interest. Of course, that amount is not enough, so the budget has to borrow hundreds of thousands of billions each year.

Looking at the series of budget revenue and regular expenditure figures from 2012 to present, it can be seen that regular expenditure has been increasing steadily. 2012 marked the first time that budget revenue reached the 1 quadrillion VND mark.

Along with the increase in budget revenue, regular expenditure also increased, usually accounting for 58-65% of total budget expenditure. In the 10-year period (2012-2022), budget revenue increased 1.75 times, from VND 1.03 quadrillion to VND 1.82 quadrillion.

However, regular expenditure also increased by 1.71 times, from over VND 603 trillion to VND 1.03 quadrillion. 2020 marked the first time regular expenditure increased to over VND 1 quadrillion and maintained a steady increase thereafter.

This shows that the growth rate of regular expenditure is almost proportional to the growth of budget revenue, putting great pressure on the state budget. High regular expenditure reflects the large scale and costly operations of the administrative apparatus and socio-political organizations.

As a result, the budget is always in deficit, meaning spending is greater than revenue. Every year, the government has to borrow hundreds of thousands of billions of VND to cover the state budget deficit and have money to invest in projects. In 2022 alone, the total state budget loan is 488,406 billion VND.

High recurrent expenditures have limited resources for development investment. In 2022, the amount spent on development investment was much lower than the amount spent on recurrent expenditures, at VND615,640 billion. Not to mention the interest payment of VND96,084 billion; the principal payment in 2022 also reached nearly VND200,000 billion.

Thus, without strong measures to reform and streamline the apparatus, budget resources will hardly be used effectively, making it difficult to achieve socio-economic development goals. Especially when the target of double-digit growth each year is urgently set to become an upper-middle-income country by 2030.