Dorsati Madani, a senior economist at the World Bank, says that the Southeast Asian country’s current challenge is how to ensure a balance between economic recovery and inflation control.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made the statement while chairing a discussion on maintaining macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation, ensuring major balances of the economy, and promoting rapid recovery and sustainable development steadily yesterday afternoon.
According to reports at the meeting, GDP in the second quarter of 2022 increased by 7.72 percent, the highest rate in the past 11 years, making an important contribution to the increase of 6.42 percent in the first 6 months of the year. Till now, the consumer price index in seven months increased by 2.54 percent over the same period last year and domestic gasoline prices were brought back to levels as they had been before the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Moreover, import-export turnover reached US$432 billion. Currently, Vietnam is implementing a program for socio-economic recovery and development with a scale of VND340,000 billion (about 4 percent of GDP), focusing on healthcare, social security, business support and investment. However, the Government determined that the situation in the coming time will continue to have more difficulties and challenges than opportunities and advantages, so absolutely all ministries and agencies must make more efforts.
After listening to the report cited by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, meeting participants made recommendations for solving immediate and long-term problems, emphasizing that it is necessary to always be ready for the Covid-19 resurgence. Dorsati Madani, a senior economist at the World Bank, said that the Southeast Asian country’s current challenge is how to balance economic recovery and inflation control.
She expressed her expectation that Vietnam can grow more than 7 percent, inflation is about 3.8 percent in 2022 believing that the Vietnam's economy still has a lot of room for development.
According to Ms. Dorsati Madani, the promotion of economic support packages and the implementation of public investment projects are very suitable for the digital economy, green development, a new more sustainable development model and the goal of becoming a developed country in the next few decades.
Meanwhile, economists Vo Tri Thanh, Tran Dinh Thien, and Nguyen Dinh Cung advocated for the Government's priority of fiscal policy over monetary policy, such as the use of VND40,000 billion to support interest rates. Many domestic and foreign experts also agree that inflation in Vietnam is mainly due to cost-push, of which the main cause is gasoline prices from impacts on the world. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly control the prices of commodities related to gasoline prices.
Speaking at the discussion, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh affirmed that the Government always requests to listen to the opinions of scientists, managers and international organizations to proactively respond to appropriate policies.
The Prime Minister said that he has assigned the Ministry of Planning and Investment to conduct a thematic study on maintaining macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation, ensuring major balances of the economy and promoting rapid recovery and sustainable development steadily.
He emphasized that the government will always update the developments of the international and domestic situation. At the same time, the country will strengthen analysis and predictions as well as closely and synchronously coordinate policy tools to prioritize inflation control and macroeconomic stability.
