GSO General Director Nguyễn Thị Hương. VNA/VNS Photo

This year is the breakthrough year of the five-year economic development plan for the 2021-2025 period, so the Government, ministries, branches and localities will make all possible efforts to gain the targeted economic growth in 2024.

Nguyễn Thị Hương, head of the General Statistics Office (GSO), spoke to Vietnam News Agency about the issue.

In 2024, the world economic and political situation continues to become complicated and unpredictable. How does Việt Nam’s economic situation fit into this context?

This year, potential risks from the world economic environment are forecast to continue to negatively impact Việt Nam's economic growth recovery prospects.

In 2024, Việt Nam's economic development is expected to still face many difficulties and challenge.

The impact of the world economic downturn will likely continue to affect the Vietnamese economy at least during the first half of 2024, before more positive signs appear.

To gain the economic growth target in 2024, the General Statistics Office believes that the economic, political and social situation must be stabilised, creating confidence for investors and conditions for inflation control.

What are driving forces to successfully implement socio-economic development goals in 2024?

The driving forces for Việt Nam's economic growth in 2024 include the continued growth of the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector. Agricultural, forestry and fishery production is forecast to continue to be stable, and rising food product prices will play a positive role in supporting economic growth.

Public investment, especially investment in infrastructure, will also be one of the important growth drivers. Attracting FDI is forecast to continue to be a bright spot, as Việt Nam is still one of the priority choices for foreign investors.

The service sector is expected to continue growth thanks to the strong recovery of the tourism industry, thereby having a spillover effect on other economic sectors to stimulate economic growth.

Some commercial sectors can maintain growth by trade policies and promotion of domestic consumption, such as air transport, wholesale and retail, accommodation and food services, financial services and tourism services.

Non-market services are forecast to maintain stability in growth. Inflation is strictly controlled at a reasonable level, which will positively support domestic consumption.

Industrial sector recovery and wage reform will help stimulate domestic consumption.

What does Việt Nam need to do to achieve its socio-economic development goals this year?

Việt Nam needs to promote the effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policies to support businesses in easily accessing credit capital.

The State needs to have policies promoting public investment, and removing difficulties and obstacles for the land, real estate, construction, tourism and capital markets.

At the same time, ministries, sectors and localities need to accelerate disbursement of public investment, prioritising projects that are about to be completed. They should soon put into operation potential projects to maintain and expand production and business.

Besides reducing tax and extending the deadline of tax payment, it is necessary to reduce all kinds of fees, and support for businesses in finding new markets, taking advantage of signed free trade agreements (FTAs), while the State should promote negotiations and signing of new FTAs.

Strengthening administrative procedure reform is still one of the solutions to create an open business environment for enterprises.

In addition, domestic market trade promotion programmes should be effectively implemented, while goods distribution via e-commerce platforms should be also promoted to expand domestic consumption.

What are the solutions to further improve import and export results?

This year, some key solutions are to continue to improve mechanisms and policies, creating a favourable macro environment for exporting goods.

Besides that, Việt Nam needs to have sustainable export development together with market diversification towards a healthy and reasonable trade balance with partners.

It would have solutions to reduce risks due to trade defence investigations to achieve sustainable export growth, and promote forecast and early warning for businesses in the commodity industry that may be at risk of being investigated.

Việt Nam will also have solutions on balance in trade with partners. Along with that, there are more preferential import tax rates, especially tax reduction for machinery and equipment from markets that have trade surplus with Việt Nam.

For the first time in the 2012 - 2023 period, the growth of Việt Nam's import-export turnover of 2023 declined, which clearly demonstrates the general difficulties of the world economy due to aggregate demand decline.

The trade surplus of goods of US$28 billion was actually due to lower import growth than export growth. The import value growth was down 8.9 per cent year on year, while export value growth dropped by 4.4 per cent.

The enterprises processing export products faced a shortage of orders, so the imports of input materials for production declined strongly.

However, it must be affirmed that the positive signs in exports in the last months of the year were the result of effective measures from the Government, ministries and sectors, including positive and synchronous solutions removing difficulties to support domestic production, promote trade, and expand export markets.

At the same time, the State also promoted economic diplomacy activities with major partners around the world in 2023.

Agricultural products continued to make impressive contributions and are a bright spot in the country's export activities, especially agricultural products such as rice, vegetables, coffee and cashew nuts.

In the last months of 2023, inflation also tended to cool down in major economies such as the US, China and Europe. Inventories in other countries decreased gradually. Along with that, demand for goods also often increased during the year-end holidays. Those factors contributed to the recovery of exports at the end of 2023.