HÀ NỘI — Key advantages that have driven national growth will not last much longer, and policy breakthroughs are needed to unleash the nation’s ‘inner potential,’ a senior Party official said yesterday.

Nguyễn Văn Bình, member of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Economic Affairs, told the Việt Nam Economic Forum 2017 held in Hà Nội that the nation’s exports were largely dependent on the foreign direct investment sector, while local companies were mainly exporting products and produce with little added value.

“This means the growth still comes significantly from external forces,” Bình said, adding that competitive advantages such as cheap labour would not last forever, especially with increasing competition from countries with lower production costs.

“Việt Nam has reaches an economic development level which requires policy breakthroughs to become a higher-income country,” he said.

Statistics compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that only 13 out of 113 middle-income countries in the 1960s managed to escape the middle-income trap and become high-income countries.

“What are the choices for Việt Nam? What should we do to escape the middle-income trap and make Việt Nam a new tiger of Asia?” Bình asked.

Jay Rosengard, a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, felt Việt Nam needed to focus on three things to gain higher growth before its population aged: investing in an infrastructure system to boost the private economic sector, improving public governance and creating a transparent and stable environment for long-term investment, and developing human resources.

6.7% it is

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Đặng Huy Đông said at the forum that in the first half of this year, the macroeconomic situation remained stable.

GDP growth was initially estimated at 5.5-5.7 per cent in the first half of the year and was on track to reach the Government’s target.

Đông said that the 6.7 per cent economic growth targeted for the year was a difficult task, but achievable with determination and effort. The pressure to achieve the target would be high in the second half of the year, he added

Nguyễn Xuân Thành, director of the Fulbright Economics Teaching Programe, said that a growth rate of 6.2-6.5 per cent for 2017 would be more reasonable. 

He said efforts to clean up the banking system and speed up privatisation of State-owned enterprises should go along with improving the efficiency of public investments.

Nguyễn Hồng Sơn, deputy director of Việt Nam National University, Hà Nội, felt the Government should strive for 6.7 per cent growth, but not at all costs.

Growth must be based on macroeconomic stability, he said, adding that Việt Nam must consolidate confidence of the private economic sector.

Economist Cấn Văn Lực said that Việt Nam should not exploit more crude oil to fulfill its GDP growth target, but promote consumption and tourism while improving the domestic business climate.

According to Trương Văn Phước from the National Financial Supervisory Commission, it was important that the growth model is renovated and productivity improved to achieve sustainable growth in 2018-20 period.

Nguyễn Đình Cung, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said that the Vietnamese economy had the potential of reaching 8-9 per cent growth rates.

He said such high growth rates could be achieved by improving the efficiency of SOEs which had $300 billion in assets; and boosting the private economic sector, which has $200 billion in assets.

Speeding up disbursement of FDI and cutting costs for businesses would also speed up growth, he said.

”If the Government issues appropriate policies, the economic growth could potentially reach 8-9 per cent rather than struggling at 6-7 per cent at the moment,” Cung said.

Interest rates to drop

Interest rates for different term deposits are likely to decline by 0.5–1 percent over 2016 thanks to positive signals from the stock and property markets, macro-economic indexes, the Government’s attention to businesses and banks’ strategies for attracting new clients, lawyer Bùi Quang Tín with the Business Administration Faculty of the Banking University of HCM City said at the forum.

However, he also said that there will be more challenges to stabilising interest rates on deposits in the remaining months of 2017, compared to 2016, as inflation and interest rates are expected to increase because the US Federal Reserve is projected to make at least three interest rate hikes this year.
Also, bad debts haven’t been fully settled, creating a big barrier to the lowering of interest rates, Tín said, adding it will exert bigger pressure on deposit rate hikes.
In the first quarter of 2017, deposit rates for different terms rose by several dozen basis points at some small and medium-sized banks. However, as a whole, deposit rates have not changed much from the beginning of the year.
Interest rates for deposits of less than six months were kept below the ceiling rate of 5.5 per cent per annum, mostly between 4.3–5.5 per cent. The rates were about 5.3–7 percent for deposits of  six to under 12 months, and 6.5–8 per cent per annum for 12 months upwards.
Meanwhile, lending rates were relatively stable. In prioritised areas, the rates ranged between 6–7 per cent per annum for short term loans and 9–10 per cent for medium and long term loans. The corresponding rates were 6.8–9 per cent and 9.3–11 per cent for loans in normal production and business areas.
The recent increase in deposit rates at some banks was attributed to their need to increase capital and meet capital adequacy-ratio requirements.

The shortage of liquidity, high inter-bank interest rates which have hampered some banks’ access to capital sources in the inter-bank market, and better credit growth are also reasons behind banks’ move to attract more deposits, the forum heard.
However, the pressure to increase deposit rates only applied to some banks, with major banks facing no liquidity shortage. The State Bank of Việt Nam still has room to regulate the market and ensure low interest rates to support growth.
To stabilise lending rates, Tín suggested that the banking system should step up settlement of bad debts and restructuring of credit institutions. The difference between interest rates for loans and deposits in USD and VNĐ should also be kept at reasonable levels, he added. — VNS