Stability for development

Every nation attaches great importance to ensuring stability in different aspects of life, recognising it as a decisive influence on national development.

Vietnam, for instance, needs macroeconomic stability to achieve sustainable growth, control inflation, balance the trade deficit, maintain exchange rates, and increase foreign reserves.

It needs stability to develop production, respect the market law of supply and demand, and improve the quality of human resources.

New urban areas are taking shape in big cities (Photo: internet)

The Doi Moi (Renewal) process has revealed Vietnam lacks a degree of both knowledge and experience, encountering major challenges and difficulties as it did during wartime.

Fierce competition intensified by international integration pressures countries into mobilising all resources available for economic development.

In corporate culture, business is a battlefield. Besides gains, companies are often likely to pay a high price for their efforts, and economic recession is an imminent risk.

Learning from success and failure of other countries, Vietnam has no choice but to find its own way to wealth, and, self-reliance is the solution. The country must rely on its own strength to create the driving force for development.

Vietnam boasts many individuals who cherish dreams of financial improvement and achievement. Self-reliance plus a selective study of humankind’s greatest economic development success will help Vietnam stand firm.

Vietnam is an agriculture-based nation, with 70 percent of the population living in rural areas. Farmers everywhere dream of possessing a television or radio, a computer, a gas cooker, a shower, and a composting toilet by 2020.

Realising this dream will welcome a golden era of development, an era in which new rural areas are formed and the standard of living of Vietnamese citizens will improve significantly.

Reality shows that problems in agriculture, rural development, and farmers’ lives are flashpoints for social instability. The Party’s recently issued new rural area resolution acknowledges the importance of these three aggregate factors.

Over the years, agriculture and farmers’ lives have stayed steady, contributing to social stability. The fact is that this rural sector needs intensive investment to narrow the development gap between different regions, especially between urban and rural areas.  

Lessons from developed nations indicate that an economy with structural, financial and investment regulatory clarity, combined with management transparency, lays a firm foundation for reliable economic development.

Last year Vietnam overcame the numerous challenges posed by regional and global political, economic and security turmoil, to achieve a GDP growth rate of five percent and keep inflation below 7 percent.

The domestic and global situation is sure to bring new challenges in the near future. The global economy is burdened by risks and unpredictability. Public debt remains potential threat to economic growth in not only the European Union but Japan and the US as well.  

Domestically, macroeconomic stabilisation and inflation containment achievements are not guaranteed to last; business production still underwhelming; the aggregate demand remains low; and inventory excess and bad debt ratios are high.

The country must also grapple with other issues arising from social and cultural affairs, national defence and external security.

Vietnam must work out effective measures to stabilize the economy, or the economy will face a period of stagnation again, negatively impacting poverty reduction and job generation efforts.

Taking into account these issues, the country should make full use of advantages and continue the government’s solutions that have shown signs of success. These solutions include maintaining macroeconomic stability, reining in inflation, easing business difficulties (bad debt and inventories), accelerating the restructuring of public investments, State-owned enterprises and commercial banks, better implementing social security programmes, and ensuring political stability and social order. 

Stability and sustainable development are of paramount importance during every step Vietnam takes towards deepening its international integration. The country cannot afford to drag its feet and be left behind, must also avoid the far-reaching consequences of overheating.

The New Year will hopefully deliver stability and development to every person and their families!