Deputy PM Hoang Trung Hai delivers a speech at the Vietnam Business Summit, Hanoi, May 3, 2011
The Vietnam Business Summit, which aims to introduce the country’s vibrant business environment, opened on Tuesday in Hanoi on the sidelines of the on-going 44th ADB annual meeting.
Speaking at the event, Deputy PM Hoang Trung Hai said that Vietnam completed the socio-economic development strategy for 2001-2010 with significant achievements recorded.
Over the past decade, Vietnam’s economy expands at an average rate of 7.26% a year, economic size is 3.3 times bigger than that of 2000. The country has fulfilled almost all the UN-backed millennium development goals, particularly in poverty reduction.
The international community saw Vietnam’s high development potentials, for both medium and long-term issues, and this is demonstrated in the record high of committed official development assistance (ODA) for Vietnam in 2010, with US $8 billion.
Vietnam, however, still faces with challenges and shortcomings in terms of growth quality, productivity, macro-balances, quality of workforce, infrastructure. They are the barriers for the country’s development, stressed Deputy PM Hai.
Moreover, the challenges of narrowing development gap, overcoming middle-income trap, especially in the context of post global financial crisis, are not easy to solve.
Therefore, the Government considers macro-economic stability, fast and sustainable economic growth are among the first priorities for the country in the next ten year development strategy, said the Deputy PM.
It is estimated that Vietnam needs about US $300 billion for investment development within 2010-2015. Therefore, the innovation in business environment, growth model transforming, synchronous development of labor, science-technology markets toward liberation of trade and investment will be prioritized.
The Deputy PM also re-affirmed the Vietnamese Government’s consistent policy to pursue economic reform, active integration, stable trade and investment ties with foreign partners.
He said that Vietnam is on way to transform the economic structure and improve the quality of the workforce but it needs time. Though the country is still dependent on agriculture but the ratio of labor in this area is decreasing while that in the industrial sector is increasing.
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ADB President Haruhiko Koruda at the Vietnam Business Summit, Hanoi, May 3, 2011
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ADB hails partnership with VN
ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda said that over the past 25 years of innovation, Vietnam has made important achievements, particularly the sharp reduction of poverty rate from 58% to just 10%.
He believed that Vietnam has vast development potentials thanks to its young and big population, tradition of optimism, and diligence.
The President suggested that the Vietnamese Government should continue to support the private sector as it contributes roughly 47% to the national total GDP. He also expressed ADB’s strong will to closely coordinate with Vietnam in the future./.