Public Policy and Development Seminars
 
Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2012: Facing the challenges of structural reform

On 24th May 2012, the VNU University of Economics and Business has collaborated with Irish Aid and Vietnam Center for Economics & Policy Research (VEPR) to organize the launching ceremony of Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2012 (VAER 2012) under the theme: Facing the challenges of structural reform.


Attending to the ceremony were leaders and representatives of organizations of the government, policy making, theory, institutes and other international organizations. Namely Mr. Truong Dinh Tuyen - Member of the Advisory Council on National Financial and Monetary Policies; Dr. Dinh Quang Ty - Chairman,Secretary of economics of Central Theoretical Council; Dr. Vu Viet Ngoan - President of the National Financial Supervisory Committee; Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung - Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management; Assoc.Prof.Dr. Phung Xuan Nha - Vice President of VNU; Dr. Le Hong Nhat - University of Economics and Law, VNUH; together with other representatives of enterprises, banks and the media.

 

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Nguyen Hong Son - UEB Rector talks to open the ceremony.

Continuing its noticeable analysis on “Economy at the crossroad” in 2011, the Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2012 (VAER 2012) emerges in the strong structural reform of the economy, focusing on the three structural reform programs according to Central Conference 3 (2011): restructuring of the commercial banking system, restructuring state-owned enterprises and public investment. With a number of favorable macroeconomic conditions in the end of 2011, the restructuring program has several advantages for implementation.
However, the macroeconomic stabilization program would cause the economic downturn and the difficulty for enterprises. These are the first signs to show that the structural reform requires a large cost to socio-economy which interferes the interests of different groups, thereby pushing the government and the economy into a big challenge. Entitled “Facing the challenge of structural reforms”, the VAER 2012 focuses on profoundly analyzing the three restructuring programs; providing an overview on the difficulties and limitations during the reform as well as proposes recommendations for the restructuring implementation. 

 Mr. Garvan McCann delivers a speech at the conference.

Speaking at the conference, Mr. Garvan McCann, Head of Development (Embassy of Ireland) emphasized that the economic instability is a common issues of many countries today. Therefore, Irish Aid also concerns about the studies on the structural reform. Irish Aid is honored to collaborate with the Vietnam Center for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) in implement the VAER 2012 to develop policy advices on macroeconomic issues. 

Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh introduces the main content of  the Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2012.

Generally reviewing on Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2012, the participants highly evaluated the topic this year and the information provided. Mr. Truong Dinh Tuyen believed the report had new noticeable points, especially the debatable discovery of the authors. He also gave some suggestions to identifying terms in the report. He thinks that there should be an overview on economic structural reform in general and the final chapter should be developed to become the policy recommendations. In addition, Mr. Tuyen also stressed on the needs of recommendations to the institutions. 

 

(From the left) Dr. Le Hong Nhat, Dr. Vu Viet Ngoan, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung

and Mr. Truong Dinh Tuyen at the conference.

Agreeing with Mr. Tuyen, Dr. Vu Ngoan also highly evaluated the discoveries in the report, for example it pointed out that Vietnam’s economic existing issues are due to internal problems. He also said that the report has good scientific data, the effective application of quantitative methods. Although it has compared the Vietnam’s restructuring and international experience, the report is required to provide the analysis of restructuring in each field such as business, banking.
Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung stated that the chapters arrangement is still unbalanced, the content is still repeated some preceding research. The authors need to answer more recent questions; such as why the solutions were proposed long ago but still remain unapplied; the recommendations should be prioritized (which should be solved ​​first, which later) rather than listed in a series. He also believed that the report should be done with stronger viewpoints, observations and recommendations. 

The report receives remarkable interest from participants.

Closing the conference, Assoc.Prof.Dr. Nguyen Hong Son represented the UEB management board and authors to express his gratitude to experts and participants. He affirmed that the suggestions and comments would be the precious reference for the authors to complete the report.

 

The authors team of VAER 2012. 

Vietnam Annual Economic Report of is within the economic reports series which are published annually to summarize the major economic issues in a year, and to discuss the economic outlook next year and policy recommendations for the existing context.

VAER 2012 is updated until December 2011. Some current issues are updated to the end of the first quarter of 2012. The Vietnamese full report with more than 400 pages is expected to publish in late June 2012. The report in English will be published about a month later, releasing globally. All comments and suggestions on the report content are sent to the author in chief, Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, at email address: nguyen.ducthanh@vepr.org.vn

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Do Chiem - Photos: Pham Diep