Prospects for economic recovery and development
Thời sự - Logistics - Ngày đăng : 10:05, 20/01/2022
Steadfast and effective
The past year 2021 has been a year full of difficulties and challenges for our country's economy and society as the pandemic greatly affected the whole country, especially from the end of April. Many production and business activities, trade and services have been stalled. Many companies had to close or dissolve. Workers' lives fell into difficulties due to lack of work...
To deal with that situation, the Government made strong decisions to remove difficulties, support people and businesses, unleash all investment resources, promote production and business in order to affirm the dual goal of “both COVID-19 pandemic prevention and economic development”. Especially, Resolution 128/NQ-CP dated October 11, 2021, promulgating the temporary regulation "Safely adapting, flexibly, effectively controlling the COVID-19 epidemic” has created favorable conditions for the country's economy. We have been slowly getting through the tough times and entering the recovery phase.
According to data released by the General Statistics Office at the end of December 2021, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021 is estimated to increase by 2.58% compared to 2020. In the general increase of the whole economy, the agricultural forestry and fishery sector increased by 2.9%; industry and construction sector increased by 4.05%...
The processing and manufacturing industry continued to be the driving force of economic growth with a year-on-year increase of 6.37%. Along with that, the import and export of the goods turnover maintained the high rate of growth. In 2021, the total import-export turnover of goods will reach 668.5 billion USD, up 22.6% over the previous year. In which, exports reached 336.25 billion USD, up 19%; imports reached $332.25 billion, up 26.5%. The balance of trade in goods is estimated to have a trade surplus of 4 billion USD, which continues to make Vietnam a country with a trade surplus for 6 years in a row.
Particularly in trade and services, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the negative growth of some service industries accounting for a large proportion led to the reduction in the overall growth of the service sector and the entire economy. The wholesale and retail industry decreased by 0.21% over the previous year, reducing 0.02 percentage points in the growth rate of the total added value of the whole economy; the transportation and warehousing industry decreased by 5.02%, decreasing by 0.3 percentage points; accommodation and food service industry plummeted 20.81%, down 0.51 percentage points.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong, General Director of the General Statistics Office, said that a number of sectors and fields with good recovery and development such as agriculture, forestry and fishery; financial activities, banking, insurance, health services and social assistance activities, etc. have contributed to general growth. In which, the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors continued to play an important role in the economy while facing difficulties. They also ensured national food security and make a great contribution to exports.
Many policies to support workers, businesses and people infected with COVID-19 were developed, promulgated, and implemented steadfastly and effectively by the National Assembly, the Government, ministries and localities.
These results continue to confirm the essential meaning, right direction, timeliness and effectiveness of the issuance of Resolution 128/NQ-CP. Assessing the achieved results, at the regular meeting of the Government on December 2, 2021, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that the epidemic situation was still under control nationwide, positively impacting socio-economic recovery and development.
Feasible goals
According to the 2022 forecast, the COVID-19 pandemic may not end due to the unpredictable new variants like Omicron, our country still faces great difficulties, challenges and potential risks.
Many leading economy experts affirmed that in 2022, Vietnam will continue to face increasing inflation pressure, public debt and bad debt of banks, human resources, equipment, infrastructure of the grassroots health system, the recovery of production and business which may be hindered by financial and market difficulties. The ratio of credit to GDP is still high, the medium and long-term capital of the economy still mainly relies on the banking system.
However, there are many opinions affirming the prospects of Vietnam's economic recovery and development due to the main solutions proposed by the Government, focusing on flexibly and effectively implementing the goal of preventing COVID-19 epidemic prevention while recovering, developing the economy and society, ensuring the people's well-being and social security. In 2022, Vietnam is still an attractive destination for investors in the medium term with many strong foundation conditions. According to the General Statistics Office, the realized social investment at current prices in 2021 reaches VND 2,891.9 trillion, up 3.2% over the previous year; total foreign investment capital registered in Vietnam as of December 20, 2021, including newly registered capital, adjusted registered capital and value of capital contribution and share purchase by foreign investors reached 31.15 billion USD, up 9.2% compared to 2020.
Jacques Morisset, the World Bank Lead Economist in Vietnam, said that, after a tumultuous 2021, heading towards 2022, the goal of bringing Vietnam's GDP growth is to reach 6% - 6.5% as set out in the recent National Assembly session was completely feasible if Vietnam met two conditions. Firstly, to control the pandemic. Although this is not an easy task because countries around the world are affected by the SARSCoV-2 virus and new variants which may appear in the near future, the very first step is to do all we can to control the pandemic. Secondly, to balance supply and demand. “The Vietnamese government has very effectively implemented the restoration of production and export areas and has achieved impressive results. Therefore, it can be said that the supply has sent positive signals and the problem is on the demand,” said Mr. Jacques Morisset.
Mobilize resources
Resolution 32/2021/QH15 on the 2022 SocioEconomic Development Plan of the National Assembly emphasized the priority task as “Focusing on flexibly and effectively implementing the goal of both preventing and controlling the COVID-19 epidemic while serving economic recovery and socio-economic development”. The National Assembly proposed the Government and related agencies step up the mobilization of social resources and prioritize allocating state budget sources to focus on improving the capacity of the health system and other important and urgent tasks.
Implement policies and solutions to maintain macroeconomic stability, control inflation, and ensure major balances of the economy. Administer flexible and effective financial and monetary policies to support the recovery of production, business, goods circulation, the connection of labor supply and demand, promotion of exports, domestic consumption, and investment promotion. Timely meet credit capital needs, strive to continue to reduce lending interest rates, closely monitor and control the arising of bad debts, and ensure the safety of the credit institution system. Tighten financial discipline, strictly manage budget revenue and expenditure, fight against revenue loss, tax arrears, transfer pricing, tax evasion, fight commercial fraud, strive to increase state budget revenue; practice thrift, combat waste and loss of the budget and public assets, thoroughly save expenses right from the very beginning, assigning and implementing estimates to give priority to the prevention and control of the COVID-19 epidemic and socio-economic recovery and development; uniformly manage and use e-invoices, nationwide from July 1, 2022.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that, in the context that our country still has many difficulties and challenges with unpredictable movement and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the task of implementing the socio-economic development plan in 2022 and next time is very heavy. “With the spirit and determination of the entire Party, people, and army, with the great unity of the whole nation and the people's faith in the leadership of the Party and the management of the State, it is determined that we will soon repel the epidemic to recover and develop socio-economically, constantly improve the life of the people, and lead the country firmly forward on the path of renewal, integration and development,” the Prime Minister affirmed.