Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc presided over a Cabinet meeting on September 4 to review socio-economic performance and figure out solutions to the rest of the year.  

 PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc (standing) chairs Cabinet meeting
in Ha Noi on September 4, 2020. Photo: VGP

The Ministry of Planning and Investment reported that the macro-economic performance was stable and inflation rate was put under control. In August, CPI saw a month-on-month increase of 0.07% and declined by 0.12% against last December.

Ministries and localities have deployed synchronous measures to accelerate disbursement of public investment capital with total disbursed volume rising by 30.4% on year in January-August period, the highest annualized growth in 2016-2020 period.

Agricultural production was stable and food security was ensured. Agricultural production gained a trade surplus of around US$ 6.2 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 4.9%.

Trade is another bright spot in the country's overall economic panorama, with export and import turnover picking up 0.03% and 1.6% to over US$337 billion and more than US$ 174 billion, respectively, helping the country to ran a trade surplus of US$11.9 billion in the first eight months.

In addition, export value of at least 27 commodities stood at over US$1 billion each, according to the ministry.

Industrial production expanded 2.2% while total retail sales of goods and services decreased as social distancing rules are still in place in some localities.

Businesses, especially small and medium-sized ones, encountered numerous difficulties. In the January-August period, nearly 89,000 enterprises were founded, down 2%. However, the number of resumed enterprises bounced back by 27.9%. 

The above situation poses great challenges for the Government to fulfill a great deal of work in the next four months./.