Some members of the national financial and monetary policy advisory council have pointed out certain problems in the economy, warning that failure to address them would not only make faster growth unachievable but also decelerate economic expansion.

The meeting of the national financial and monetary policy
advisory council in Hanoi on September 25

At a meeting in Hanoi on September 25, the council said despite the growth slowdown in the global economy and big economies along with complex developments in the world’s financial – monetary markets and trade, the Vietnamese economy has performed positively over the last nine months.

Economic indexes between January and August met targets, and the economy is on the way to attain the targeted GDP growth rate of 6.8 percent this year, driven by the recovery of the mining industry, the domestic consumption, the disbursement of foreign direct investment (FDI) capital and some new processing – manufacturing projects, which have made up for the showdown in mobile phone and component production, according to the advisory council.

Meanwhile, inflation is still kept under control as it grew only 2.57 percent in the eight months – a three-year low.

Besides, the council highlighted the high budget collection, the stock market’s growth rate of over 10 percent from the end of 2018, and the corporate bond market reaching 586 trillion VND (25.1 billion USD, equivalent to 10.6 percent of the GDP) by the end of this year’s second quarter.

Advisors also spoke highly of the Government’s steering and coordination of the monetary, fiscal and other policies.

However, they pointed out that the capital absorption capacity of the economy remains weak due to institutional obstacles, which has led to the sluggishness in the allocation and disbursement of public investment capital and hampered enterprise development, investment and business climate improvement, and implementation of public-private partnership projects.

If the Government failed to remove those bottlenecks, it would be hard to achieve faster growth, or growth could even decelerate in the time ahead, they noted.

Some members voiced concern about the quality of foreign investment attraction, noting that the number of foreign invested projects in the last nine months has risen 26.4 percent year on year, but their registered capital dropped 22.3 percent.

They said the Government should not have regulations that limit the corporate bond market but step up business rating services, increase supervision to ensure the market’s healthiness, and associate the issuance of Government and corporation bonds with the monetary policy.

Additionally, the Government should also keep diversifying export markets, the council said, underlining the need to boost the export of goods to China via official channels; perfect the standards relevant to the Vietnamese origin to fight tax evasion and trade fraud; actively work with other countries, particularly the US, to deal with trade-related issues; and not use price-related tools to support export.

Appreciating the opinions, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said they will help with the Government’s socio-economic governance in the remaining months of 2019 to create a solid foundation for performing tasks next year.