HÀ NỘI – Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc urged the industry and trade sectors to accelerate restructuring and renew management towards a market-based economy and strive to maintain export growth at at least 10 percent.

Phúc made his comments at the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s conference held yesterday to review works in the first half of this year and discuss tasks for the remainder of the year.

Under discussion at the conference were a number of problems including a slowdown in industrial production, rampant food safety violations, weak management towards multi-level marketing and fake fertilizers.

The implementation of development strategies for industries such as steel, automobile and mechanical production were not as efficient as expected while efforts to promote the dynamism of the business community amid rapid international integration remained inadequate, Phúc said.

“All of these problems press the Ministry of Industry and Trade to hasten restructuring, especially renewing management approaches towards improving productivity through innovations and application of high technology,” Phúc said.

Opportunities from free trade agreements (FTAs) were there, but institutional reforms and policies must be raised timely to enable firms to grab the available opportunities, Phúc said.

Phúc urged the ministry to create favourable conditions to promote the participation of the private sector in business and production.

“Most importantly, the sector must strive to maintain export growth at at least 10 percent,” Phúc said.

“This is a Herculean task amid the slow recovery of the world economy,” Minister of Industry and Trade, Trần Tuấn Anh said, adding that greater effort and determination were needed.

Tuấn Anh said the ministry would focus on trade promotion, dissemination of market information as well as enhancing firms’ awareness of free trade agreements and eliminating unnecessary business conditions.

The ministry’s statistics showed that export value in the first half of this year touched US$82.24 billion, representing a rise of 5.9 percent over the same period last year.

Capital for power projects

At the conference, Minister Tuấn Anh proposed to the Prime Minister to allow Việt Nam Electricity (EVN) to use official development assistance (ODA) and preferential loans in developing power projects to ensure stable power supply.

Tuấn Anh said this would help reduce credit risks for power development projects. He said a majority of power projects were faced with capital shortage, adding that there were around 40 power generation projects and hundreds of power transmission projects.

A report to the Government by the Ministry of Finance revealed that EVN’s Government-backed debts totalled US$9.7 billion as of the end of 2015, accounting for 37 percent of the total Government-backed debts of State-owned enterprises.

Regarding the divestments of State capital out of Saigon Beer-Alcohol-Beverage JSC (Sabeco) in the south and Hanoi Beer-Alcohol-Beverage JSC (Habeco), Minister Tuấn Anh said that the two largest brewers in Việt Nam were underway to develop plans for State capital divestments.

He said that the divestments would be based on the principle that the State would hold less than 50 percent of the charter capital or even no stake at all, adding that the ministry would evaluate the divestment plans of Sabeco and Habeco. – VNS