Vietnam’s GDP growth rate in 2010 is expected to reach 6.7 percent, topping the target of 6.5 percent, the government reported Saturday during the 35th session of the National Assembly (NA)’s Standing Committee.
The consumer price index (CPI) is possible to be curbed below 8 percent, higher than the NA’s target of 7 percent but much lower than forecast by international organizations in the beginning of the year.
The export-import turnover eyes to rocket by 19 percent, triple the target while the State budget’s expenditure is about to be 5.95 percent, beating the NA’s norm of 6.2 percent.
According to the NA Economics Committee, the government administration has not only presented encouraging achievements in the economic but also in social fields.
Specifically, the poor ratio dropped by 1.8 percent while the lending rate for agriculture and rural development rocketed by 25 percent compared to last year.
Over expenditure and trade deficit
Although obtaining positive achievements, the quality of economic growth is not high, said Ha Van Hien, head of the NA’s Economics Committee.
The import turnover attained its target of 20 percent lower than export turnover, the expected number still tops US$13.5 billion, an increase of 5 percent as against 2009. If not including exports of precious metal and stones, the trade deficit will exceeds 22 percent.
The economics committee thus proposed the general target in 2011 should give priority to macroeconomic stability and economy reconstruction to bolster the growth quality.
In addition, several members of the NA standing committee said that a revise on national goal programs should be launched to end some ineffective ones.
In response, Cao Viet Sinh, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, said that the government has selected only 15 of 23 programs proposed by localities to carry out, aiming to obtain millennium goals that Vietnam has undertaken.
In addition, the government would synthetize data on the rate of poor households nationalwide to better measures on poverty alleviation, he said.
Closing the debate, NA Deputy Chairman Nguyen Duc Kien, proposed the government to revise the whole norms to eliminate vague ones.
Over expenditure should be taken to normal level as before the economic crisis and national goal programs should be combined with socioeconomic programs to balance the investment capital from the outset, he said.
Power shortage
According to a statement the government submitted the NA, the electricity consumption demand would rocket by 15 percent next year with the expected GDP of 7.5 percent.
With the current condition of the electricity system, if one power project falls behind schedule or the drought continues, the power blackout will repeat.
It is forecast that the electricity shortage will be worse in 2013 and 2014. As a result, construction of power projects should be hastened right now and the state should have measures to lure private sector in building electricity plants.
NA deputy chairman Huynh Ngoc Son said that the power shortage would be a “hot” issue of the NA.
