NA discusses socio-economic development
(VOVworld) – Economic development and agricultural restructuring topped the agenda of the National Assembly’s discussions on Thursday. Deputies concluded that the most outstanding achievement of 2013 socioeconomic development was creating policies and mechanisms for macro-economic stabilization, which have controlled inflation and gradually stabilized the monetary market.But deputies called for the government to issue more specific measures to deal with factors that can cause macro-economic instabilities, because market reliability hasn’t fully recovered. Although exports have increased, the domestic economic sector remains weak. The budget deficit and national debt remain big as a result of Vietnam’s medium-term loans.
Deputies praised the government’s setting of development targets for the next two years with a GDP growth rate of 6% per year and an inflation rate of 7% per year. Tran Du Lich, a deputy for Ho Chi Minh City, said:
“I agree with a change from restraining inflation to controlling market inflation. This is an important point in future management. From this point of view, I agree we shouldn’t be hasty in boosting growth that can cause inflation. To this end, in terms of policies for the next two years, especially the monetary policy, we should maintain a credit growth of 14 to 18% and priority should continue to be given to the five areas the State Bank of Vietnam is focused on now. Regarding policy management with a focus on fiscal policy, we should make full use of the state budget investment.”
Agricultural production was another highlight of Thursday’s debate. According to some deputies, over the past two years, several difficulties needed to be resolved. A decline in agricultural production and price drops for agricultural produce, combined with consumption difficulties, led to a decline of farm income. Deputy of Dong Thap province Nguyen Thanh Tung said: “Agricultural restructuring is a pressing task. In order to achieve this goal, I propose that the government create policies for farmers, and rural areas that focus on settling two current hurdles: the quality of agricultural cooperatives and policies to attract private investment in the agricultural sector. The government should change from supporting farm households to supporting cooperatives to improve administrative capacity and operational efficiency. I recommend that the government hasten to enact policies to encourage production models and to develop material zones and auxiliary industries to produce cattle-feed.”