In a report delivered to the parliament on May 21, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh said that the macroeconomy remained stable and the growth rate in the first three months of 2018 was the highest in ten years.
Industrial production and exports grew by 9.7%, compared with the 4.48% growth recorded in the same period last year, while exports surged by 19% in the four months up to April to nearly US$74 billion.
Commenting on the Government report, Economic Committee Chairman Vu Hong Thanh stated that, except for industrial production and exports, growth in other sectors has yet to meet its potential.
He added that there remain risks to inflation in 2018.
Thanh also pointed out a number of issues that need to be dealt with such as falling foreign investment pledges, sluggish public investment disbursement and delays in a number of key national projects.
Furthermore, the restructuring of the budget and public investment is still facing numerous difficulties, one of which is that there isn’t much room for increasing government revenues.
The Economic Committee suggested that the Government takes aggressive action to cut red tape and informal costs, while making a more detailed report on measures to manage public assets and containing the property bubble in a number of localities.
Deputy PM Binh said that the Government will take a wide range of actions to curb inflation at 4% and reach the growth target of 6.7% in 2018.
