The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) will continue working hard to ensure gross domestic product (GDP) growth reaches 6.8 per cent at the end of the year. The target is lower than the actual number of 7.08 per cent recorded in 2018. The Ministry will work with other ministries, government agencies and local authorities to keep inflation below 4 per cent this year.
It will also keep a close watch over regional and international economic developments while working with the ministries of Finance and Industry and Trade and the State Bank of Vietnam to predict possible outcomes of developments.
The MPI will also improve existing regulations and offer solutions to enhance law enforcement among government agencies. At the next meeting of the 14th National Assembly in November, the ministry will deliver the draft laws on investment, enterprises and public-private-partnership (PPP) model for discussion. A plan to raise capital for the development of the water and land transport systems will be developed so the systems are connected to the Vietnam-Cambodia border gates.
In addition, solutions to lure more foreign direct investment (FDI) will also be examined. There is little chance the US will slap tariffs on Vietnamese exports, Lương Văn Khôi, deputy director of the National Centre for Socio-Economic Information and Forecast (NCIF), told the MPI meeting on Thursday. If the US wants to add tariffs, it must find out if that economy has achieved a trade surplus worth more than US$20 billion in two-way trade with the US.
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In addition, that economy must have a surplus balance that exceeds 2 per cent of the country’s GDP and continuously ensure the monetary market keeps currency weaker than the US dollar to make exports competitive. Vietnam has not committed any action regarding monetary intervention, so the US will not slap tariff on Vietnamese exports, Khôi said.
In the short term, Vietnam may benefit from the US-China trade war as investors may move their production to other markets that are not influenced by the tariff, including Vietnam, he said. But in the long term there will be problems as technology and supply chains are key matters where Vietnam is still weak at, he added.
To deal with the impact of the US-China trade war, Khôi recommended Government continue stabilising the macro-economic conditions and take control of the VND to deal with a weaker Chinese yuan. “We need to increase trade protectionism measures to prevent Chinese goods from flooding the domestic market. In the meantime, we need to monitor Chinese capital closely, especially companies that want to assemble products in Vietnam and export them to the US market.”
- VDSC