Prime Minister works with the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Group

The Prime Minister asked the members of the Advisory Group to contribute ideas on mechanisms and policies to help the country overcome difficulties and challenges and develop rapidly and sustainably.

Reporting to Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the working session, Head of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Group, Mr. Vu Viet Ngoan, said that after one year of operation since its establishment in July 2017, the Advisory Group has proactively researched and advised the Prime Minister on policy viewpoints for economic direction and management, and implementation solutions such as advising on policy solutions to take advantage of opportunities from the 4.0 industrial revolution, creating new growth drivers, promoting economic restructuring, enhancing economic resilience, and responding to unusual fluctuations in the world economy.

At this 5th meeting, the Advisory Group recommended that the Prime Minister direct ministries and branches to review 37 common obstacles for enterprises in the process of preparing and implementing investment projects in 9 laws and sub-law documents. The Advisory Group also contributed many opinions on newly emerging "hot" economic issues such as stock market fluctuations, trade tensions between the US and China, etc.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc

Assessing the results of restructuring and growth model innovation after the past 2.5 years, the Advisory Group believes that the growth model has initially changed positively. The labor productivity growth rate is higher, reaching approximately 6% in 2017 compared to an average of 4.6% in the period 2012-2015. The contribution of Total Personal Productivity (TFP) to economic growth in 2017 reached 44%, compared to 33.5% in the period 2011-2015. The private economic sector grew faster and improved its contribution to GDP. Domestic exports initially showed signs of increasing faster than the FDI sector.

However, these results are still modest if we want to create momentum for the next stage to develop faster with the target of GDP increasing by an average of 7-7.5% per year. Therefore, in order for economic growth to reach an average of 6.85% in the 3 years 2018-2020 and an average of 7-7.5% in the period 2021-2025, the productivity growth rate by 2020 needs to reach 6.3% and then reach 6.8%.

Looking back on the activities over the past year, the Prime Minister highly appreciated the Advisory Group for its dedicated and responsible opinions, which are an effective information channel to help the Prime Minister in shaping policies. Many members have spent time, regularly informed and reported to the Prime Minister on the economic situation as well as solutions, especially many emerging "hot" issues.

The advisory group has proactively researched and advised the Prime Minister on orientations for mechanisms, policies and solutions for direction and management in a number of important areas; and provided more timely advice and recommendations on newly arising issues.

However, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also pointed out some shortcomings and limitations that the Advisory Group needs to overcome, such as the Advisory Group's recommendations on specific mechanisms and policies that are still limited, and the lack of mobilization of resources from other scientists. The Prime Minister requested the Advisory Group to proactively analyze and see internal and external difficulties, thereby giving advice on mechanisms and policies to help the country overcome difficulties and challenges, develop quickly and sustainably; provide advice on development strategies, especially new driving forces, new factors, and areas that need to be focused on for development. In addition, the Advisory Group needs to give advice on short-term, medium-term and long-term policies, on breakthroughs to rapidly increase national economic self-reliance, labor productivity, and technology mastery.

The Prime Minister also asked the Advisory Group to discuss mechanisms to promote the mobilization of resources from the people, socialization, and removing obstacles in implementing public-private partnerships (PPP).

Appreciating the report of the Advisory Group on the economic restructuring program and growth model innovation, the Prime Minister agreed that over the past 2 years, this program has become more substantial, creating clearer changes and requested the members of the Advisory Group to contribute to providing clearer and more complete information about the positive results in all aspects of the country, contributing to creating an exciting atmosphere and strengthening the confidence of investors and enterprises in doing business.

However, according to the Prime Minister, it is necessary to frankly acknowledge that economic restructuring still has limitations and shortcomings such as slow transformation in many sectors and fields, and failure to achieve some of the set goals and requirements...
Taking note of the Advisory Group's comments on this issue, the Prime Minister emphasized that the Government will strongly implement restructuring, innovate the growth model, maintain macroeconomic stability to avoid shocks to the economy, and enhance the economy's resilience with more timely measures. The Prime Minister hopes to continue receiving comments from the Advisory Group on short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions to overcome current difficulties and challenges of the world economy./.