HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to offer the Government solutions to boost economic development and turn Việt Nam into a “new tiger” of Asia.

Phúc, speaking on Monday at the ministry’s conference to implement 2018 tasks, urged the ministry to closely watch socio-economic developments to raise measures to meet growth targets this year.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyễn Chí Dũng said that the socio-economic development in 2017 would create the impetus for the country to enter a new period of growth, one more efficient, sustainable and inclusive.

“The way towards innovation and development is still long, ahead with difficulties and challenges which require great effort to overcome,” Dũng said.

The ministry was striving to enhance public management and improve the investment climate to promote production and efficiently attract private and direct foreign investment resources, he added.

In 2018, the ministry would focus on the compilation of laws to submit to the National Assembly, such as the Law on Special Administrative-Economic Units, the amended laws on public investment and enterprise as well as the law on investment under public-private partnership practice, Deputy Minister Nguyễn Văn Trung said.

This year, the Vietnamese economy was expected to face a lot of difficulties from the uncertainty in the global economy, the return of protectionism, climate change, international integration and the fourth industrial revolution, Trung said.

However, opportunities abound, given the Government’s efforts to promote innovation associated with the industry 4.0 and enhance productivity and national competitiveness, he added.

“The core is maintaining macroecnomic stability and taking advantage of every opportunity to create breakthroughs,” he stressed.

Trung said that the ministry would focus on studying policies to effectively raise every resource for development investment as well as solutions to hasten economic restructuring in line with renovating the growth model and enhancing growth quality.

Nguyễn Đình Cung, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said that Việt Nam was a developing country and it was pressing to narrow the gap with developed economies in the region and in the world. To achieve this goal, Việt Nam must achieve an annual GDP growth rate of at least 8-10 per cent.

Cung also said that the ministry must do more in its role as the economy’s conductor.

In 2017, Việt Nam fulfilled targets set for all 13 socio-economic indicators and achieved a gross domestic product growth rate of 6.81 per cent, higher than the target of 6.7 per cent. The country also saw a record of 127 new firms in 2017.

Measure the underground economy

Speaking at the conference, Director of Việt Nam General Statistics Office Nguyễn Bích Lâm said that a statistical project of measuring the non-observed economy would be proposed to the Prime Minister for approval this year.

The project aims to collect information on economic activities that affect the scale of the economy but are not measured in GDP, causing economic indicators to be underestimated.

Lâm said that the non-observed economy included production activities that were illegal, underground, informal, or otherwise missed by the statistical system, according to the definition of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. — VNS