GDP growth in the first quarter was lower than the set target. What is the solution to reach the finish line this year?

At the regular Government Press Conference in March held on the evening of April 3, the issue of GDP growth in the first quarter was of interest to the press. The data just released by the General Statistics Office showed that GDP growth was lower than the set target. So what is the important immediate solution to achieve growth as planned?

According to the assessment of Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong, the growth results of the first quarter are considered quite good compared to the average in the world and the region, when other economies are forecast to grow at a very low level.

"This reflects the reality exactly as we assessed when building the socio-economic development plan for 2023. At that time, the assessment of the situation showed difficulties, challenges and opportunities, advantages intertwined but difficulties and challenges were greater. Reality happened exactly as assessed, even the difficulties and challenges were greater than what we expected," Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Phuong.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong.

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong said: The international context and difficulties in the world such as inflation issues, although cooling down but still at a high level, the tightening monetary policies of countries and major economies in the world, the decline in global market demand, the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict... all have a great impact on the Vietnamese economy because our economy has a large openness.

Regarding solutions in 2023, Deputy Minister Tran Quoc Phuong said that the Ministry of Planning and Investment has consulted and reported to the Government and the Prime Minister on the following key issues:

Firstly, in 2023, with such difficulties, to achieve the goals, plans set and targets assigned by the National Assembly, we must make great efforts to make up for what we did not achieve in the first quarter. Here, we must maintain a consistent viewpoint, first of all ensuring macroeconomic stability and controlling inflation. This is the fundamental factor, deciding everything to be able to implement other solutions to recover and promote economic growth in the remaining months.

Second, in the macro solutions, there are two policies that need to be focused on in management, extremely flexible, effective, and prudent. Those are monetary policy and fiscal policy. Currently, with the impact of world monetary policy, we face many challenges in the management process, requiring a high level of sensitivity, timeliness, and flexibility in management, both ensuring to cope with the difficulties brought about by international, but also ensuring to provide enough resources for the economy to maintain operations and development.

Third, it is necessary to immediately review all remaining policies and growth drivers of the economy to focus on impact, using growth in favorable areas to compensate for difficult areas.

According to the analysis of the General Statistics Office, the manufacturing and processing sector is facing many difficulties, with low growth and negative growth. Therefore, the remaining drivers need to pay more attention, with agriculture being the mainstay. Our services are growing well, so we should focus on the service sector to help other sectors.

In terms of consumption, although export momentum has decreased in scale, on balance we still maintain an export surplus of 4 billion USD.

In the investment sector, foreign investment and private investment, although affected, still maintained positive growth. Here, the role of public investment is extremely important, and the Prime Minister continues to direct ministries, branches and localities to pay attention to promoting the disbursement of public investment capital. This is a key solution in driving investment and growth.

The last area to be reviewed is the development of the domestic market. When our exports are facing difficulties, the role of the domestic market is extremely important. All solutions must be applied to encourage the domestic market to develop further, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong stated./.