Still many obstacles ahead

Speaking at the opening of the forum, Tran Tuan Anh, Head of the Central Economic Commission, emphasized that Vietnam is being strongly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic via socio-economic factors and people's lives, as well as the supply and demand chain. For the first time, growth in the third quarter of 2021 fell deeply (-6.17%). This is the deepest decrease since Vietnam has calculated and announced quarterly GDP.

It is forecast that the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to be prolonged and unpredictable. As a result, the country's economy has to face many difficulties and challenges, with many potential risks beyond the tolerance of people and businesses. The urgent need is to find effective solutions for sustainable socio-economic recovery and development in the post-Covid-19 period while creating a foundation for growth drivers in the long term. This will promote the process of industrialization and modernization, in accordance with new development context and requirements.

However, the process of socio-economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic, along with the implementation of industrialization, is facing major obstacles. Typically the model growth has not been based much on science or innovation and as a result, economic restructuring associated with growth model innovation is still slow. The autonomy of the economy is also still low and heavily dependent on outsiders.

Industrial development has not met the requirements of industrialization and modernization, mainly developing according to short-term goals, therefore lacking in sustainability. Policies for developing industries are slowly being solidified. The industrialization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas still lack a development strategy.

Speaking at the forum, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that, “each country's adaptation and development under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in the current digital era is a major issue and a matter of great urgency in both the short and long term. Especially as the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is deepening. In a special context, special visions, solutions and actions are needed, especially in the trend of digital economy development and global connectivity. While the Covid-19 pandemic has no end point, we need to be proactive and flexible in our response.

In the future, Vietnam will continue to implement the motto of safe and flexible adaptation, along with effective disease control, focusing on improving the quality of health human resources and strengthening the grassroots health system and healthcare economy as a whole. As well as ensuring there are enough vaccines and therapeutic drugs, difficulties are removed for production and business and breakthroughs are made in the construction of infrastructure systems, especially strategic infrastructure on the ground digital transformation platform and development of the digital economy and society.

Scene of the Forum.

Production and supply chain will be restored quickly

According to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, one of the focuses of the recovery process is to maximize human resources. This is due to the fact that the people are both the center, the subject, the driving force and the goal of development.

At the forum, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, Tran Quoc Phuong, also presented a policy framework for sustainable socio-economic recovery and development. The goal of the program is to quickly restore production, restore supply chains and promote growth drivers, striving to achieve the average growth target in the 2021-2025 period of about 6.5 to 7%/year, while maintaining macro-economic stability, ensuring major balances in the medium and long term.

There are six main groups of solutions, including: opening the economy in association with pandemic prevention and control, social security and employment support, supporting the recovery of enterprises, cooperatives and business households, developing infrastructure, utilizing social resources for development investment, perfecting mechanisms, policies and administrative reform and improving the business investment environment.

Support policies will focus on promoting the rapid development of production and business, mainly via cost reduction and cash flow support. The issue of social security and the lives of people and workers, especially the poor, the vulnerable, and those heavily affected by the pandemic, have received special attention.

In the group of security solutions, the Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment proposed to support housing rental costs for employees working in enterprises in economic zones, industrial parks and export processing zones. He also proposed to continue to review and adopt appropriate support policies for people in difficult circumstances due to the impact of the pandemic, to provide preferential loans through the Bank for Social Policies, to support job creation, student support, preschool facilities and non-public primary schools and provide loans to buy and rent social housing.