Stimulating the domestic market

According to the statistics, GDP was estimated to rise 6.93% year on year in the first quarter of 2025, marking the highest first-quarter growth in the 2020-2025 period. Total retail revenue of goods reached VND1,708,252 billion in the quarter, up 9.9% year on year, contributing significantly to supporting the service share in the first-quarter GDP growth structure, which grew by 7.7% - the highest in 2020-2025. Additionally, the first-quarter headline consumer price index (CPI) rose by 3.22% year on year, a reasonable growth within the limits set by the National Assembly.

With respect to market inspection and control, in the first quarter of 2025, the local market watchdog conducted inspections and strictly handled violations; reinforced local management; closely inspected and controlled warehouses and yards; handled online business violations, price tagging, and selling at quoted prices; oversaw petrol stations to prevent violations; disseminated legal regulations to raise awareness about regulatory compliance; and worked to stabilize the market and protect the legitimate rights of businesses and consumers.

According to statistics, from December 16, 2024, to March 15, 2025, the market management force inspected 6,198 cases, handled 5,619 violations, and collected over VND79 billion for the State Budget.

Given market developments, the Domestic Market Management Team recommended that central agencies and localities continue to effectively implement the tasks and solutions set by the Government to promote economic growth and accelerate public investment disbursement to meet the national growth target of 8% or more in 2025.

In particular, Directive 08/CT-BCT dated April 4, 2025, of the Ministry of Industry and Trade on solutions for further promoting domestic market development and stimulating consumption in 2025 highlights strengthening supply-demand connection and trade promotion to support the consumption of domestically produced goods; joining forces to implement measures to encourage exports, seek and expand export markets, limit the trade deficit, and support domestic production to replace imports; and synchronously and effectively carrying out the “Buy Vietnamese” Campaign that encourages Vietnamese people to give priority to using Vietnamese goods.

In addition, central and local market management forces need to closely monitor global oil markets, implement measures to ensure petroleum supply for the domestic market, and coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to manage petroleum prices.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment is requested to officially assess epidemic situations and pork supply in the coming months to boost supply for the domestic market and stabilize the market. At the same time, it will coordinate with localities to effectively implement measures to support livestock farmers in stabilizing livestock production. In addition, localities and relevant agencies will strengthen market control and inspection, avoid hoarding and price speculation, and closely monitor and minimize cross-border trade (due to the price difference with neighboring countries) to avoid disease infections in the country.

Weighing up assigned solutions and targets

Mr. Tran Huu Linh emphasized that, with recent market difficulties - especially the US's reciprocal tariffs on countries, including Vietnam - maintaining internal corporate strength and ensuring commodity supply and demand in the domestic market has become more crucial than ever. Recently, the Government requested promoting domestic market growth to achieve economic growth targets.

He said that 2025 is the first year that the Government assigns specific targets to each ministry and locality. Accordingly, the Ministry of Industry and Trade is assigned the following targets: Retail revenue growth of 12%, B2C e-commerce market growth of 20-22%, the rate of e-commerce-adopted companies at 60-62%, merchandise export growth of 12%, merchandise trade surplus of US$30 billion, industrial production index (IIP) of 9.5%, and electricity production and import growth of 12.5-13%.

“For the industry and trade sector, this is a very difficult task that requires specific solutions and calculations to achieve the assigned target,” he added.

Mr. Pham Van Binh, Deputy Director of the Price Management Department (Ministry of Finance), said that to achieve the growth target assigned by the Government, in the remaining months of the year, solutions are needed to boost growth. However, boosting growth can easily lead to pressures on the market price. These pressures may come from the prices of some products like construction materials, consumer goods, and State-managed products in addition to some other issues such as market-based production, trading, and wage policy.

However, in addition to pressures on market prices, the Ministry of Finance also anticipated factors that may create downward pressures: Global inflation has tended to cool down in recent months, and food is still a solid foundation, a helping element in market management. State-priced items like tuition fees and textbooks are relatively stable. Moreover, the application of some tax policies such as VAT reduction also helps ease impacts on market prices.

According to a representative from the Monetary Policy-Exchange Rate Department under the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), in the first quarter, the SBV kept the regulatory interest rate unchanged to facilitate credit institutions to access capital from the SBV at low costs, thereby supporting the economy. To accomplish the expected credit growth and strongly execute solutions to boost credit growth, the SBV planned and organized a conference to connect 15 state banks in nine regions to capture actual local situations and promptly apply solutions to remove difficulties and facilitate people and businesses to access bank credit capital. By April 3, 2025, the total outstanding credit balance of the system reached VND16,170 trillion, representing a year-on-year growth of 18.12%. This is a very bright result in credit growth.

In the coming time, the SBV will continue to closely monitor domestic and global macroeconomic developments to operate its monetary policy actively, flexibly, promptly, and effectively. The central bank will have timely policies to respond to market movements, thereby regulating interest rates and exchange rates in line with market developments, inflation, and monetary policy targets. The SBV will also direct credit institutions to reduce costs, stabilize deposit interest rates, and reduce lending interest rates.

Regarding pork, Mr. Le Thanh Hoa, Deputy Director of the Agro Processing and Market Development Authority under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, said that the ministry had a meeting on pork where it proposed solutions to increase supply from herd restoration and increase imports to cool down domestic pork prices.