On 22nd March 2018, National Economics University in collaboration with National Assembly’s Economics Committee and Central Economic Committee organized the national conference on "VIETNAM’S ECONOMY IN 2017 AND PROSPECT IN 2018: Removing Barriers to the Development of Vietnamese Private Enterprises - Release of the Annual Vietnamese Economic Report 2017".
Attending the conference, from Office of National Assembly, there were Dr. Nguyen Duc Kien, Vice Chairman of National Assembly’s Economics Committee; Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Son, Deputy Director of Supervision Department, Office of the National Assembly; Mr. Truong Minh Hoang, Vice Chairman of Law Committee of National Assembly; Dr. Pham Tat Thang, Vice-chairman of Culture Committee of National Assembly. From Central Economic Committee, there were Dr. Hoang Xuan Hoa, Director of Economic Department, Central Economic Committee and experts from the Department of Central Economic Committee. From Central Theoretical Committee, there were Mr. Nguyen Van Thao, Vice-chairman of Central Theoretical Committee and other representatives. From guest speakers, there were Mrs. Pham Chi Lan, Economic Expert; Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, Former Deputy Director of Central Institute For Economic Management; Dr. Pham Minh Duc, Senior Economic Expert, World Bank in Vietnam; Dr. Phan Duc Hieu, Deputy Director, Central Institute For Economic Management and experts from institutes, universities and other experts.
From National Economics University, there were Prof. Dr. Tran Tho Dat, The President of National Economics University; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thanh Ha, Chairman of University Council; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Hong Chuong, Vice President; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hoang Van Cuong, Vice President, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Thi Van Hoa, Vice President and around 300 representatives from other institutes and press agencies.
Addressing at the conference, The President expressed his gratitude to delegates, scientists, and economists, entrepreneurs, and universities participating in the conference. He shared that the main purpose of this conference is to summarize Vietnam economy in 2017, analyze prospect in 2018 and make policies to remove barriers to the development of private enterprises.
Also in the conference, Vietnam Annual Economic Report in 2017: Removing barriers to the development of private enterprises was published to evaluate Vietnam economy in 2017.
At the press conference, Prof. Dr. Tran Tho Dat said that this was an annual publication of National Economics University. It was completed by the collaboration between senior economists of National Economics University and collaborators.
Beginning the conference, Assoc. Prof. Dr. To Trung Thanh, Head of Department of Science Management had briefly introduced the content of the report. The result showed that Vietnam economy in 2017 had lots of satisfactory achievements but existed a large number of difficulties and challenges such as the quality of development, the method of developments and management. In addition, the monetary system is solving bad loans and the capital ratio is quite low; government debt and budget deficit continue to be huge risks; FDI is lack of contribution to sustainable development and pushes the economy to middle-income trap.
After that, Dr. Pham Minh Duc, Senior Economists, World Bank in Vietnam presented the Economic Impact and the Distribution of Income of CPTPP in the Prospect of the economy in 2018. In his opinion, CPTPP brings lots of benefits to Vietnam economy such as trade liberalization, accelerate competition management, services, customs, e-commerce, environment, government purchasing, intellectual property, investment and so on.
In the report about the obstacles to entrepreneurial development, Dr. Phan Duc Hieu, Deputy Director, Central Institute For Economic Management stated that government reforms had achieved many good results.” In 2017, national competitiveness level reached 55 out of 137 economies. Business environment increased 14 levels, innovation index climbed up 12 levels, up to 47 out of 127 economies. The rate of tax and social insurance have improved dramatically, stay 86 out of 190 countries”.
In open discussion, economists were highly valued the content of the publication as it could concentrate on the problems which firms are dealing with. According to Mrs. Pham Chi Lan, firms are being subjected to other compliance costs. Dr. Vo Tri Thanh argued that the growth of Vietnam economy was not valuable if we removed the contribution of Samsung or Formosa. It showed that Vietnam’s firms were extremely difficult.
At the closing ceremony, Dr. Nguyen Duc Kien, Vice Chairman of National Assembly’s Economics Committee stated that the conference was really successful and he hoped that the paper:” Vietnam annual economic report 2017” would have huge influent in the community.