The highlight of 2020 was that Vietnam achieved and exceeded 10 out of the 12 main targets assigned by the National Assembly, up two targets compared to the estimate, including the targets on the growth rate of total export revenue and on the unemployment rate in urban areas.
This is an encouraging economic result amid the “COVID-19 period” because the pandemic caused dramatic declines on consumption worldwide, pushing production and export activities to stagnation and raising unemployment rate.
In addition, the implementation of four other goals has better performance than the estimates reported to the National Assembly, including the growth rate of gross domestic product (GDP), the average growth rate of consumer price index (CPI), trade surplus, and the percentage of population participating in health insurance.
Basically, the growth quality of the economy has been improved with less dependence on natural resource exploitation, raw exports, and cheap labour while gradually shifting to rely on application of science, technology and innovation, and the processing and manufacturing industry.
It can be said that Vietnam's economy had a year of brave growth in both quantity and quality, which were not only kept stable but also growing.
This result has added a highlight to the economic picture of Vietnam in such a difficult year while reinforcing the confidence of the whole society in the Government's policy and governance in the context unpredictable developments of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, with GDP growth rate of 2.91% in 2020, Vietnam's economy had the lowest growth year in the past ten years and failed to meet the target set for the 2016 – 2020 period.
This is a big challenge in the starting year of the implementation of the 5-year socio-economic development plan in the 2021 - 2025 period and the ten-year strategy in the 2021 – 2030 period.
To continue with another year of brave growth, right from the beginning of 2021, the entire political system has made every effort to drastically restrain the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic while continuing to promote production and business activities towards the annual growth target of 6.5%.
At the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Finance asked the Government to develop a decree to extend the deadlines for tax payment and land rent for enterprises in the context of prolonged COVID-19 epidemic with an estimated value of about VND115 trillion.
Amid the increasingly unpredictable global political and economic situations and difficulties in making forecasts due to the impact of the pandemic, more than ever, “rewards” will be given to the economies which early and flexibly take response activities.
