On April 18th, in Hanoi, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) published the Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific, in which Vietnam economic growth rate is estimated to be 5.5 percent in 2013, equivalent to the rate ratified by the Government. However, ESCAP also warned that inflation rate will probably be higher than the target of 6 percent - 6.5 percent.
Vietnam economy is recovering
Dr Le Xuan Sang from Central Institution for Economic Management said that Vietnam economy is revealing positive but unclear signals. Bright points are in service sector, particularly tourism, hotels and restaurants. Agricultural production rapidly increases, contributing to general growth while industrial production for export is facing difficulties. Despite big challenges of stabilising the economy and restructuring financial sector, Vietnam has dynamic human resources and quite diverse economy. Registered foreign direct investment (FDI) strongly increased in Quarter I of 2013, showing foreign investors’ trust in the business environment in Vietnam. Inventories are decreasing gradually, some domestic enterprises start importing materials again to fill new orders.
Looking forward, Dr Le Xuan Sang said that Vietnam does not isolate itself in national recovery trend, and it still has to face many challenges as forecast economic growth and other economic indexes for 2012 and quarter I of 2013 are reduced. Sharing about temporary and long term solutions of the Government, Mr Sang said: “Positive activities for stimulating the economic recovery are promoting processes of capital disbursement, issuing bonds for crucial infrastructure projects, closely supervise and assess public investment projects. Other solutions are restructuring financial system, reforming models and methods of supervising financial market, ensuring reliability in international audit and evaluation of enterprise assets. Besides, promoting reforming processes and methods of making policies are starting steps to ensure improvement of Vietnam economy in the near future”.
Harmonious and eco friendly development is the key factor
Mr Daniel Jeongdae Lee, Associate Economic Affairs Officer at ESCAP stated that despite global economic impacts, the Pacific - Asia region’s economy is considered “a back up of global economy in the recovery process”. However, he also warned developing economies, including Vietnam, that development based on fossil resources is potentially unsustainable and causes social and environmental problems because “in order to make an unit of growth, nations excessively use natural resources and influence habitats, resulting in losses of farmers’ lands”. ESCAP made recommendations about the increasing salary inequality and serious depletion of natural resources during the recent period, saying that: “The macroeconomic policy makers play a crucial role in bringing the area towards sustainable growth and more sociable, this is a top priority in the development agenda beyond 2015 of the region. Currently, sociable and eco friendly development is a key factor to create a new economic dynamics in the recent uncertain economy”.
ESCAP also announced that since the global crisis, the uncertainty of economic policies in the Euro zone and USA has decreased the GDP of these areas about 3 percent, losing about US$860 billion in output value. If the economy holds its current trend, GDP decline may occur in many economies in the region, causing an estimated damage of about US$1.3 trillion by the end of 2017.
Dinh Thanh
Vietnamese
