It was the main theme of the Vietnam Development Partnership Forum (VDPF 2014) covering the period 2013-2015 “Establishing new partnerships towards competitive, inclusive and sustainable growth”.
VDPF is a high-level policy forum with more substantive, action-oriented and wide-ranging participants. The forum offers the chance for policy discussion between Vietnamese government, donor countries, private sectors, civil societies at home and abroad, Vietnamese institutes and others to enhance comprehensive socio-economic development and welfare for all Vietnamese people.
Two main topics of the forum this year are: reforming market institutions to increase competitiveness and private sector development; and developing private sector to build a sustainable and autonomous economy.
Speaking at the forum, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung welcomed the topic of the forum this year focusing on the development policy of the Vietnamese government, that is mobilizing and using most effectively all resources; reforming administrative formalities, improving business environment to create all necessary conditions for the people and businesses to develop, especially encouraging the strong development of private businesses.
The Prime Minister reaffirmed the accomplishment of a law-governed state ensuring democratic freedoms of the people and improving market economic institution in compliance with the 2013 Constitution is the main driving force and solution to enhance efficiency and competitiveness of Vietnamese economy. Vietnam will go ahead with international integration, applying most effectively existing bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, at the same time negotiating and signing free-trade agreements of new generation. It serves as a foundation for the government to facilitate and encourage trade and FDI of investors the world over.
The Prime Minister also reaffirmed the determination of Vietnamese government to restructure the economy, transforming the growth model, improving competitiveness of the economy, increasing social equality and implementing successfully objectives of the millennium.
Emphasizing the fight against corruption as one of the priorities of the government in 2015, the Prime Minister expressed the determination to continue all-round measures to fight corruption, especially in the accomplishment of a law-governed state, bringing into full play democratic freedoms of the people, finalizing market economic institution, discovering and executing most effectively all corruption cases in accordance with the law.
At the forum, Victoria Kwakwa, World Bank Country Director for Vietnam said that as a middle-income country, in the next five years Vietnam will be embraced with important developments: initiating five-year socio-economic development plan (2016-2020), preparing XII Party Congress in early 2016. It will be a rare opportunity for Vietnam to plan a new drive of institution reform to boost productivity and increase growth.
Ms Victoria Kwakwa believed that in early 2014 the government has issued Resolution 19 on main tasks and solutions to improve business environment and national competitiveness and recently the National Assembly has approved many important amendments to Bankruptcy Law, Enterprise Law, Investment Law, Bidding Law, Public Investment Law, etc. it is now the right time to endorse continued constitution reform.
According to the WB representative, Vietnam should increase the coordination between government agencies and improve legal enforcement (contract implementation, property right, public security, tribunals, crimes and violence) so as to encourage investment and production.
“An important part of the reform should be the enhancement of macro-economic management. It is necessary to take into account the independence of Vietnamese bank as a modern central bank. This is an important issue in the process of increasing competitiveness and modernization of Vietnamese economy,” Ms Victoria Kwakwa said.
She also pointed out that the reform of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) remains an important issue. It will be a springboard for the development of domestic enterprises. The reform of SOEs should focus on the quality of equitisation instead of the number of equitised enterprises. First of all, private ownership in SOEs should be increased so as to attract investors and upgrade business management, transparency must be enhanced by periodical bulletin of high credibility, preferential treatment in capital and land should be ended, fixed budget should be applied in SOEs.
In addition, Ms Victoria Kwakwa believed that Vietnam should have a clear-cut plan on settlement of bad debts in the process bank reform. Though recent efforts to enhance legal framework for the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) are important, the more fundamental question is where to get capital to settle bad debts. Without a reliable solution, banks will hesitate to give credits to private enterprises, especially small enterprises.
At the forum, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and representatives of concerned ministries and agencies have listened attentively and exchanged directly on official views, policy and management of the government regarding development partners and international organizations.
During the past two decades, donor countries (now development partners) have pledged over US$80 billion for ODA (more than half of the amount disbursed) – an important contribution to socio-economic development in Vietnam. From 2013 on, after 20 years as recipient country, VDPF replaces Conference of Consultative Group of Donor Countries (CG), marking an important development of Vietnam, from a recipient to a development partner.
Anh Mai
Vietnamese
