Trần Đình Thiên

Professor Dr. Trần Đình Thiên, a member of the Government Economic Council talks to Sài Gòn Đầu tư  (Sài Gòn Investment)  newspaper about the important role of private economy in national economic development.

What should Việt Nam do to turn political documents adopted at the recent 13th National Party Congress into life?

Private economy has been described as an important element in the national economy in all documents adopted at the recent 13th National Party Congress.

For a long time, the development of enterprises has been highlighted in the all Party’s documents, yet the element of development quality has not been properly treated. As a result, Vietnamese enterprises have not yet been developed as strong as they should be.

Whenever people talk about the enterprises, they often refer to them as State enterprises and the term private enterprises seems to have been forgotten.

Although the course of “đổi mới” or renewal has been going on for more than 30 years, the contribution of our private enterprises accounts for just 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Products (GDP). Meanwhile FDI enterprises accounts for 25 percent. So the development of the private economy is an important driving force for the national economy to develop. I hope that the political documents adopted at the recent 13th National Party Congress Việt Nam will become a driving force for Việt Nam to develop a complete strategy for Vietnamese enterprises in accordance to the principle of a market economy.

Don’t you think it is time Việt Nam should have strong enterprises serving as the mainstay for the national economy?

I highly appreciate Government’s policy to encourage the development of strong private economic groups. But that policy should be more specific. The multi-sectorial national economy, in which the private economic is recognised as an element, has helped avert the Vietnamese national economy from crisis.

In all the meetings of the advisory group to the Government, of which I’m a member, I told the Prime Minister that a very important element that has helped Việt Nam gain success in the fight against the COVID-19 was the strong development of the private economy. And the private economy has become an important driving force for the country to move forward. However, right now, we only have a few big private economic groups. As a result they cannot play the role as a driving force in the national economic development.

If Việt Nam wants to become an international economic power, we need many more strong Vietnamese private enterprises which are able to compete internationally.

Political documents adopted at the recent Party Congress have laid a strong emphasis on the need to need to raise the national economy to a higher level. Do you have any comment on that?

I still remember, at the 1976 National Party Congress, we considered science and technology as important driving force for Việt Nam to develop. And then, at the 1990 National Party Congress, an intellectual economy was introduced. By now these two proposals have not yet been totally achieved. However, we hope - in about 10 years, the economic gap between Việt Nam and developed countries will be narrowed down.

Right now, Việt Nam is in the course of wider and deeper international integration. So, Việt Nam should utilize this opportunity as an internal driving force to take the country to a higher level._VNS