Representatives of ministries and agencies at the Government’s monthly meeting on Thursday. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính on Thursday ordered ministries and sectors to give priority to stabilising the macro economy, controlling inflation, boosting development and ensuring major balances.

Chairing the Government’s monthly teleconference with localities, PM Chính said since the beginning of this year, the Government has followed the Party Central Committee’s conclusions, the National Assembly and Government’s resolutions, and Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng’s directions on 2023 socio-economic development. Ministries, agencies and localities have also drastically performed their assigned tasks.

In January, the macroeconomic situation was stable. The consumer price index rose by 0.52 per cent month-on-month and 4.89 per cent year-on-year.

As of January 17, credit growth hit 0.65 per cent compared to the end of last year, meeting public demand before and during Tết (Lunar New Year).

The State budget collection reached 11.3 per cent of the estimate for the year, while newly-registered FDI tripled the figure in the corresponding period last year to US$1.2 billion. The trade surplus was estimated at $3.6 billion.

National defence and security were guaranteed while external activities were stepped up. Production and trade were on a recovery track thanks to increased demand during Tết (Lunar New Year 2023).

As much as VNĐ80.8 trillion ($3.51 billion) for socio-economic development was disbursed as of late January.

About the disbursement of public investment capital in the past 13 months, the Finance Ministry estimated that it reached 92.97 per cent of the Prime Minister’s plan as of January 31. However, the absolute amount disbursed in the past 13 months was up about 23 per cent compared to the same period previous year.

PM Chính ordered ministries and sectors to give priority to stabilising the macro economy, controlling inflation, boosting development and ensuring major balances.

He emphasised the importance of “promoting the roles of both monetary and fiscal policies”.

“Fiscal policy acts as an important and decisive factor to support monetary policy,” he said.

He also asked sectors and localities to strengthen the digital transformation of the population databases to apply technology in tax payment, and fee collection, especially food services.

Spending priority should be given to key socio-economic infrastructure, he said, while ordering tightening management, accelerating the progress of large, important projects, especially key traffic projects.

Localities need to be more proactive in disbursing public investment and implementing national target programmes with investment being focused, he said.

Sectors and localities must exploit the domestic markets and well implement the campaign of “Vietnamese people prioritise domestic products”, while fostering trade connections to expand export markets and take advantage of free trade agreements, he said. — VNS