Ministry of Planning and Investment Portal

At the event. Photo: MPI

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong highlighted that the cooperation between the MPI, relevant ministries and OECD and ADB are effective and “unprecedented”. Experts from OECD and ADB have openly exchanged ideas and coordinate closely with Vietnamese agencies in a constructive spirit.

The deputy minister spoke highly of the first report on Vietnam’s economy conducted by the OECD, which is an important document with scientific, objective, and practical assessments. He believed that the report will be an crucial reference for many Vietnamese ministries, sectors and research agencies in providing consultation for policy development.

Vincent Koen, Deputy Director of the OECD hailed that Vietnam has made remarkable achievements in socio-economic progress, especially implementing the dual goal of “pandemic prevention and control and economic development” in the COVID-19 combat and becoming outstanding among other nations.

The report provides three key insights. First, macroeconomic policy need to strengthen economic resilience. Priority should be to minimise the impact of high energy prices in short term through targeted support for vulnerable households, rather than implementing further expansionary fiscal measures.

It is worth noting that it is important to strengthen the macroeconomic policy framework in medium term by improving fiscal sustainability through expanding the tax base. Social protection also need to be enhanced and informal economy’s size should be reduced.

Secondly, Vietnam needs to further improve the business environment and accelerates the digital transformation to maintain high economic growth after the recovery. Promoting business enthusiasm requires continued efforts in streamlining regulations, increasing transparency of regulatory processes and creating fair playing field for all market participants, including state-owned enterprises and private entities.

Thirdly, the country must focus high investment in renewable energy and pursue greater energy efficiency to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. This can be realised through a comprehensive policy approach that priorities effective public and private investment, building favourable regulatory and mechanism for market prices that better reflect carbon content.