10 outstanding milestones in Vietnam's socio-economic development in 2023

Closing 2023, in the context of more difficulties and challenges than opportunities and advantages, the situation has developed abnormally and complicatedly beyond all previous forecasts, we have achieved many important and quite comprehensive results, many fields have achieved outstanding achievements and marks.

These results and achievements were achieved thanks to the wise and timely leadership and direction of the Party Central Committee, directly and regularly by the Politburo and the Secretariat, headed by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong; the involvement, supervision and companionship of the National Assembly; the drastic direction and administration of the Government and the Prime Minister; the involvement, solidarity, close coordination and responsibility of the entire political system, all levels, sectors and localities; the support and active participation of the people and the business community; and the attention and assistance of international friends.

Let's review 10 typical achievements and milestones of the country in 2023 selected and introduced by the Government Electronic Newspaper.

The socio-economic situation continues to recover, with each month being more positive than the previous month, each quarter being higher than the previous quarter, basically achieving the set general goals and achieving many important results in all fields; continuing to be a bright spot in the global economy; achieving and exceeding 10/15 targets.

In 2023, Vietnam was recognized by many international organizations as a country with many outstanding achievements in socio-economic development. The macro-economy was basically stable; inflation was lower than the target set by the National Assembly; public debt, government debt, foreign debt, and state budget deficit were controlled; growth was promoted; major balances of the economy were ensured.
GDP growth for the whole year was about 5%, a great effort in the context of a very difficult global situation, helping our country's economy remain among the countries with high growth in the region and the world. The agricultural sector is a bright spot and continues to be a solid pillar of the economy in difficult times; the service sector is developing quite vigorously, the industrial and construction sectors are gradually recovering.

Many prestigious international organizations highly appreciate the results and prospects of our country's economy and predict that Vietnam will recover quickly in the near future. Fitch Ratings has upgraded Vietnam's long-term national credit rating to BB+ (from BB), with a positive outlook."Stable". The value of Vietnam's national brand reached 431 billion USD, up 1 rank to 32nd/100 strongest national brands in the world.

Foreign affairs and international integration have been implemented in a vibrant, systematic, continuous, and comprehensive manner, and are a highlight of 2023, with a harmonious, close, and effective combination of Party diplomacy, State diplomacy, and People's diplomacy.

Many important and historic foreign affairs achievements have created new opportunities and chances for national development; notably the preparation and successful organization of official state visits to Vietnam by General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden. A series of visits and working sessions abroad by Party and State leaders have deepened good relations with many important partners. Vietnam's image, stature, prestige and position have been raised to new heights.

Foreign affairs and international integration work has been implemented actively, systematically, continuously, and with comprehensive success, and is a highlight of 2023.

Up to now, our country has established comprehensive strategic partnerships or strategic partnerships with all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and many G20 countries; contributing to enhancing Vietnam's position and prestige in the international arena; maintaining a peaceful and stable environment for national construction and protection.

The implementation of strategic breakthroughs in building infrastructure systems, especially transport infrastructure, has had remarkable changes, especially the expressway system.

2023 is the year with the most new expressway projects completed and started in more than a decade. Since the beginning of the term, 729 km of expressway have been completed and put into use, bringing the total number of expressway kilometers put into operation to date to 1,892 km. At the same time, about 1,700 km of expressway are under construction, striving to complete and exceed the target of having about 3,000 km of expressway nationwide by 2025, and 5,000 km of expressway by 2030.

Regarding aviation, complete and put into operation Passenger Terminal T2, Phu Bai Airport, Dien Bien; resolutely and thoroughly handle difficulties to start construction of Passenger Terminal T3 - Tan Son Nhat International Airport, Long Thanh International Airport project... ensuring quality and progress as required.

The work of building and perfecting institutions, laws, mechanisms and policies has been focused on, commensurate with strategic breakthroughs, with many innovations in direction and approach. The Government has received the sharing, companionship and close coordination of the National Assembly and the National Assembly Standing Committee.

In 2023, the National Assembly passed 16 laws, 29 resolutions and commented on 18 draft laws. The Government held 10 thematic meetings on law-making, commented on 47 contents, focusing on completing and submitting to the National Assembly the draft Land Law (amended).

The Government issued 86 decrees, the Prime Minister issued 29 normative decisions. The overall program of state administrative reform was implemented vigorously and effectively; focusing on cutting, simplifying, and decentralizing administrative procedures. Promoting decentralization and delegation of power; reviewing and perfecting the organizational apparatus; rectifying the situation of cadres and civil servants shirking responsibility, fearing responsibility, and fearing mistakes in performing public duties; issuing a Government Decree on encouraging and protecting dynamic, creative cadres who dare to think, dare to do, and dare to take responsibility for the common good.

Planning work has been accelerated, 108/111 plans have completed the establishment, appraisal, and approval, and quality has been improved; the National Master Plan and many sectoral, field, and provincial plans have been issued.

In the context of many market difficulties, the total import and export turnover is still estimated at 683 billion USD, with a trade surplus of about 26 billion USD, in which agricultural exports, especially vegetables, fruits and rice, set a new peak with many record numbers.

Specifically, the agricultural group reached 24.3 billion USD, up 17% compared to last year. There were 6 items with export value of more than 3 billion USD including coffee, rice, vegetables, cashew nuts, seafood, wood and wood products.

Fruit and vegetable exports reached 5.6 billion USD, a record high and far exceeding the initial expectation of "4 billion USD for the whole year". In 11 months, Vietnam's rice exports also set a record with more than 7.7 million tons of rice for a value of more than 4.4 billion USD, an increase of more than 36% compared to last year. Vietnamese rice has surpassed its competitors to win the number 1 position in the world's best rice competition.

With the signing of the bilateral free trade agreement (VIFTA) with Israel, to date, Vietnam has signed and participated in 16 FTAs, and is continuing to negotiate 3 more FTAs: Vietnam-EFTA (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein), ASEAN-Canada, and Vietnam-UAE.

As of December 20, 2023, the total registered foreign investment capital in Vietnam (FDI) reached nearly 36.61 billion USD, an increase of 32.1% over the same period, the third highest year in the period from 2008 to present. The realized capital of foreign investment projects is estimated at about 23.18 billion USD, an increase of 3.5% compared to 2022, a record disbursement level to date in the context of global trade and investment being narrowed. Vietnam's business environment ranking also increased by 12 places globally.

Business registration activities in 2023 are impressive with a record of nearly 160,000 newly established enterprises, an increase of 7.2% compared to 2022, 1.2 times higher than the average level in the 2017-2022 period and an increase of 4.6% compared to the estimated implementation for the whole year of 2023.

The number of enterprises returning to operation in 2023 also reached more than 58,400. Thus, the number of enterprises entering and returning to the market continued to be at the mark of more than 200,000, an increase of 4.5% over the same period in 2022 and 1.3 times the number of enterprises withdrawing from the market during the year.

The year 2023 marks new milestones in restructuring the economy, developing emerging industries and fields, promoting science and technology, innovation, digital transformation, green transformation, developing digital economy, green economy, circular economy, knowledge economy, and sharing economy.

National digital transformation is actively promoted, with an estimated digital economy contribution of about 15% of GDP in 2023. The project on developing and applying population data, identification and electronic authentication (Project 06) has been directed and implemented vigorously with high determination and achieved many impressive results, contributing to limiting negativity, saving time and effort for people and businesses, and is a "bright spot" in digital transformation in our country.

The science and technology market has developed. The national innovation and startup ecosystem has developed strongly; the National Innovation Center (NIC) was inaugurated; and three national innovation and startup support centers in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang have been focused on building and completing. Vietnam's global innovation index ranked 46/132, up 2 places compared to 2022.

2023 also marks Vietnam's leap forward in the semiconductor sector with a series of agreements and development cooperation projects with leading partners, corporations and giant enterprises in the world.

Vietnam has resolutely implemented action programs to respond to climate change, reduce emissions, and transition to energy according to the political declaration on a just energy transition (JETP), sold carbon credits for the first time, and issued green bonds, demonstrating its responsibility with the international community to bring net emissions to "zero" by 2050.

The Government continues to direct ministries, branches and localities to focus on reviewing, detecting and promptly handling shortcomings, difficulties and obstacles, both in terms of legal regulations, mechanisms, policies and implementation organization, to unlock resources, support businesses to overcome difficulties, promote growth, create jobs and livelihoods for people, and ensure the lives of workers.

Estimated public investment disbursement for the whole year is about 667,882 trillion VND, reaching 94.3% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister, about 2.88% higher than the same period in 2022 (91.42%), in absolute terms about 137.6 trillion VND higher. Public investment is restructured in a focused, key direction, focusing on projects with high spillover effects, creating development momentum.

The Government resolutely handles and removes difficulties, limitations, and shortcomings, develops synchronous, safe, healthy, sustainable, and integrated markets; stabilizes and develops the corporate bond market and real estate market more positively. Continues to handle bad debts, restructures credit institutions, especially the five weak banks.

Focus on restructuring, enhancing and improving the operational efficiency of state-owned corporations and groups; continue to effectively handle 8/12 projects and enterprises that have been making losses for many years; complete and put into operation many large and important power projects after a long interruption.

The cultural and social sectors continue to receive investment and development attention, achieving clearer results. All social planning targets have been achieved and exceeded, clearly demonstrating the good nature of our regime, not sacrificing social progress and equity to pursue mere economic growth.

Faced with economic difficulties, the National Assembly and the Government continue to implement policies to exempt, reduce, and extend taxes, fees, charges, and land rents. The total value of these policies is nearly 200 trillion VND, and as of November, over 172 trillion VND has been exempted, reduced, and extended (of which about 65 trillion VND is exempted and reduced). Increase revenue, save expenditures, and set aside a salary fund (to date about 560 trillion VND), ensuring sufficient resources for salary reform in the 3 years of 2024 - 2026.

The work of ensuring social security and caring for the lives of workers, especially vulnerable groups and policy beneficiaries, continues to be promoted. People's lives continue to improve, the average income of workers increases by 6.8%; over 94% of households assess that their income is stable or higher than the same period in 2022. According to the World Happiness Report in March 2023 of the United Nations, Vietnam's Happiness Index increased by 12 places, from 77th to 65th in the global rankings.

The organization of the 80th anniversary of the birth of the Outline on Vietnamese Culture and the first National Conference on the Development of Vietnamese Cultural Industries are important events to continue to concretize and implement the Party's guidelines and policies, the Party and State's policies and laws on cultural development, especially the instructions of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the 2021 National Cultural Conference.

The work of preventing corruption and negativity continues to be promoted, affirming that this is an inevitable and irreversible trend, contributing to consolidating and enhancing people's trust in the Party and State.

There have been many new steps forward in investigating, discovering, and trying many major cases; many new corruption and negative cases, especially serious and complicated, that have attracted public attention, have occurred in specialized fields, operating in closed areas, with interweaving between the state and non-state sectors that have not been handled before, such as: Continuing to investigate and expand phase 2 of the case related to Viet A Company; the case that occurred at the Consular Department (Ministry of Foreign Affairs); cases that occurred at FLC Group; Tan Hoang Minh such as: cases that occurred at SCB Bank, Van Thinh Phat Group, An Dong Company...; handling many defendants who are high-ranking officials, both incumbent and retired, in the spirit of "No forbidden areas, no exceptions, regardless of who they are"./.