More efforts needed to achieve economic growth targets

The GDP growth of 3.72% in the first half of the year is lower than the target set by the Government in Resolution 01/NQ-CP, so it is a challenging task to achieve the growth target in 2023, Phuong said.

If Vietnam does not reach the economic growth targets, that result will affect the implementation of the five-year socioeconomic development plan from 2021 to 2025, and also the 10-year development strategy from 2021 to 2030. It also puts at risk the goals set out in the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress for 2030-2045, he added.

To achieve a GDP growth rate at 6.5% for 2023, Vietnam would need to attain a growth rate of approximately 9% for the second half of the year.

The reduction of global demand has affected import-export activities as well as the production and business of domestic enterprises. Most large enterprises in the fields of processing, manufacturing and electronics have heavily relied on the consumption of major economies, but with consumption decreasing, some markets are witnessing declines of up to 60%.

Deputy Minister Phuong said in such challenging circumstances, the agriculture sector continues to be an important pillar with stable growth, together with the strong recovery of the tourism and service sectors. Both have provided substantial support to the overall GDP growth structure, helping to alleviate challenges faced by the industrial sector.

He underlined the need to further promote the growth drivers, including consumption, investment, and export; maintain macro-economic stability, control inflation, and ensure social security and support labourers in the remaining months of the year.

It is also necessary to focus on drastically implementing solutions to promote the disbursement of public investment capital and the programmes of socioeconomic recovery and development, accelerate the progress of national key transportation infrastructure projects, and inter-regional and large urban infrastructure projects, Phuong said.

Ministries, sectors and localities need to solve legal problems in a prompt and effective manner, focusing on bottlenecks and obstacles in public investment disbursement, such as project preparation and site clearance, he added.

Vietnam needs to continue to closely monitor forecasts on the international economic and financial-monetary situation, thereby having a timely response plan and improving the effectiveness in coordination between monetary policy and other macro policies to maintain macro-economic stability, control inflation and support economic growth.

Another very important solution is institutional reform to create new policy room for economic development, he went on./.