Seminar seeks ways to improve growth quality

Economic experts discussed measures to improve the quality of economic growth in a workshop held by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) in Hanoi on March 11.

Participants heard that with economic growth of 7.38 percent, Vietnam’s GDP growth in the first quarter of 2018 surpassed most of the forecast expectations.

According to Nguyen Anh Duong from the CIEM, the impressive economic growth in the first three months was attributed to the improvement of trade balance.

He said the low inflation and stable macro economy created favourable conditions for Vietnam to achieve high growth in the period.

However, economic experts said Vietnam’s growth quality has not been improved as the national economy still relies on foreign invested sector and is affected by the world economy’s fluctuations.

To create impetus for the higher economic growth in the remaining quarters of the year, Duong said the Government should give priority to stabilising the macro-economy and exchange rate, while carefully considering regional minimum wage increase in 2018 to avoid impacts on inflation.

He also underlined the need to further improve business climate, accelerate the restructuring of State-owned enterprises and encourage businesses to apply advanced technologies in production to increase labour productivity and quality.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Mai, Chairman of the Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises, stressed that it is necessary to have fundamental changes in FDI attraction policy with specific orientations and objectives, towards expanding affiliation between foreign-invested enterprises and local partners, thus promoting sustainable economic growth.

CIEM Director Nguyen Dinh Cung said Vietnam should be more active in finding high quality FDI sources that have great impact on its economy.

Along with changing the FDI attraction strategy, there should be solutions to support the development of domestic economic sector, contributing to the national growth, he noted.

Economic experts said in order to achieve high and sustainable growth in the coming years, Vietnam needs to take advantage of opportunities from international economic integration, particularly benefits brought by the newly-signed Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the Vietnam-European Union Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) which are said to positively impact Vietnam’s economic and export growth.

VNA

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