Prime Minister requests that cheating in exams not be overlooked because of achievement disease

On the morning of July 31, at the Government Headquarters, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired the regular Government meeting for July, assessing the implementation of socio-economic tasks in July and the first 7 months.

Looking back at the socio-economic picture in July, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc assessed that the results were more positive than in June. In particular, inflation was well controlled with the Consumer Price Index decreasing by 0.09% after a sharp increase in the previous two months. Although there are many difficulties ahead, the Prime Minister affirmed that the Government is committed to keeping inflation this year at no more than 4% as assigned by the National Assembly Resolution. Currently, core inflation has increased by only 1.36%.

Other good news is that agricultural production achieved positive results. Winter-spring rice output increased by 1.1 million tons, rice exports reached over 2 million tons in the first half of this year.

In particular, industrial production increased sharply by 14.3%. Of which, the processing and manufacturing industry increased by 16.6%, which was the growth driver in July and will strive to maintain in the coming time.

In addition, other figures such as total retail sales of goods and consumer services; international tourists; foreign direct investment; budget revenue, exports, etc. all achieved quite well. Of which, as of mid-July, budget revenue had reached nearly 52% of the year's estimate. Exports reached nearly 134 billion USD, with a trade surplus of about 3.1 billion USD.

Since the beginning of the year, nearly 80,000 new businesses have been established, and 18,700 businesses have returned to operation.People's lives continued to improve, the number of hungry households decreased by nearly 40%.

With positive signals of the socio-economy, the Prime Minister said that many international organizations highly appreciated and forecasted well the economic prospects of Vietnam. In particular, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecasted Vietnam's GDP growth to increase by 7.1%, Standard Chartered forecasted an increase of 7%, inflation around the 4% mark. Budget expenditure and public debt are under control...

However, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc pointed out many weaknesses, difficulties and challenges facing the economy. In the immediate future, the storm and flood situation continues to be complicated, affecting people's lives and production.

In particular, the Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and relevant agencies to have solutions to manage lakes and dams, especially learning from incidents such as the recent hydroelectric dam collapse in Laos.

The Prime Minister also requested ministries and sectors to discuss socio-economic solutions in the coming time, including controlling inflation and stabilizing the macro-economy. Although the consumer price index in July decreased slightly, inflationary pressures are still high due to rising world market interest rates, rising exchange rates, rising commodity prices, and especially the China-US trade war. This is an issue that the Macroeconomic Management Team must have specific solutions for.

Along with that, ministries and branches need to propose solutions to reduce business conditions, access to credit, land, fees, costs, and logistics. Emphasizing that the progress of equitization of state-owned enterprises is still slow, the Prime Minister said that many ministries and local branches have not been determined to implement the approved equitization program. Along with requesting ministries, branches, and enterprises to speed up the progress, the Prime Minister said that the Government will soon hold a national conference on state-owned enterprises.

Regarding the negative aspects of the recent National High School Exam in some localities that caused public outrage, the Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Education and Training to have specific immediate solutions, especially medium and long-term solutions.

The Prime Minister requested to clarify the story of the 2-in-1 exam in the recent exam, whether it was unreasonable or not, and to discuss it in a democratic and open manner.

"This incident has greatly affected social trust, and drastic measures are being taken by the political system and authorities against ministries, branches and localities that have violated the law. The government will not ignore this because of the disease of achievement. We are seriously considering the high school and university entrance exams to clearly conclude the issues raised at this meeting, to reassure the people," the Prime Minister stated.

The Prime Minister also requested ministries and sectors to handle the transfer pricing of FDI enterprises, the sale and encroachment of thousands of hectares of forest, implement the high-tech agricultural credit program, the issue of conferring the title of People's Artist, and resolve the occurrence of serious accidents.

Referring to the tragic accident between a container truck and a wedding car that killed 13 people in Quang Nam, the Prime Minister directed that conclusions need to be drawn after the incident and asked Minister Nguyen Van The to pay attention to this issue with the motto of human life above all.

Another issue that the public is concerned about is the import of scrap into Vietnam with more than 6,000 containers, especially at Cat Lai Port and Hai Phong. The Prime Minister said that he had a meeting and directed on this issue, determined not to let Vietnam become a scrap dumping ground.

"We have assigned the police to promptly investigate and prosecute the owners who have dumped scrap into Vietnam and evaded responsibility; we must quickly investigate and prosecute these subjects to effectively prevent this. At the same time, we will revise a number of legal documents to minimize the amount of scrap that does not enter Vietnam, except for some scrap that is a real need for production but must be strictly controlled," the Prime Minister stated./.