US Professors Give Advice to Help Vietnam Develop Economy

Professors, economists , and leading researchers from Harvard, Columbia, and Yale universities in the United States have proposed and recommended policies and solutions to promote economic development in Vietnam.

Các Giáo sư Hoa Kỳ hiến kế giúp Việt Nam phát triển kinh tế

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a policy discussion with professors, economic experts, and leading researchers from Harvard, Columbia, and Yale universities.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a policy discussion on the topic: "Promoting sustainable growth and development in a volatile global economic environment" with leading professors, economists, and researchers from Harvard, Columbia, and Yale universities.

Attending the discussion were representatives from Harvard Kennedy School including Prof. Anthony Saich, Director of the Rajawali Institute for Asian Studies; Mr. Thomas Vallely, Director of the Vietnam Program; Prof. David Dapice, Chief Economist, Vietnam Program; Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thanh, Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, Senior Lecturer at Fulbright University; Columbia University including Prof. Shang Jin-Wei, Prof. Nguyen Thi Lien Hang; Yale University including Prof. Erik Harms, Head of the Southeast Asia Department...

Vietnam gives more priority to promoting economic growth

Speaking at the seminar, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that President Joe Biden's recent State visit to Vietnam was a historic milestone, elevating the Vietnam-US relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for peace, cooperation and sustainable development, for the prosperity of the two countries, and for the happiness and well-being of the two peoples.

In which, economic-trade-investment cooperation is the foundation, focus and driving force; scientific-technological cooperation and innovation are breakthroughs.

The Prime Minister affirmed that Vietnam always attaches importance to enhancing dialogue, exchange, and policy consultation on economic and development issues with the world's leading research centers.

Summarizing the world situation, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that the global economic and political situation is facing the most profound and rapid changes in many years.

Faced with such a difficult situation, the Prime Minister said that Vietnam is making efforts to focus on implementing drastic, synchronous and flexible solutions to promote socio-economic recovery and development, especially removing difficulties for production and business, creating all favorable conditions for people, businesses and investors.

Vietnam's most outstanding results are that the macro-economic foundation is maintained stably; growth is promoted; inflation is controlled; major balances of the economy are ensured; state budget deficit and public debt, government debt, and national foreign debt are well controlled. Many prestigious international organizations highly appreciate the situation and prospects of the Vietnamese economy. However, the head of the Government said that the Vietnamese economy still faces many difficulties.

Regarding major orientations in Vietnam's socio-economic development policy, the Prime Minister said that he will continue to firmly and persistently pursue the goals of stabilizing the macro-economy, controlling inflation, promoting growth, and ensuring major balances of the economy.

Vietnam gives more priority to promoting economic growth; thereby creating jobs, livelihoods, and income for the people, while also creating a foundation to maintain macroeconomic stability. At the same time, it continues to implement a proactive, flexible, timely, and effective monetary policy; closely and synchronously coordinates with a reasonable, focused, and key expansionary fiscal policy.

Vietnam focuses on promoting and creating a solid foundation and breakthrough factors for sustainable socio-economic growth and development in the medium and long term; consistently implementing the policy of building an independent and self-reliant economy associated with proactive and active international economic integration, comprehensively, substantially and effectively.

Accordingly, promote the implementation of strategic breakthroughs in institutions, human resources, and infrastructure systems. Create substantial changes in economic restructuring (both between sectors and within sectors) associated with transforming the growth model towards improving productivity, quality, efficiency, competitiveness, and resilience of the economy.

Focus on consolidating and enhancing the role of the state economy; improving the efficiency of the collective economy; strongly developing the private economy as a driving force of the economy; selectively attracting foreign investment; focusing on promoting close and effective links between economic sectors, participating more deeply in regional and global supply chains and value chains.

Promote national digital transformation, green growth, digital economic development, circular economy, sharing economy, etc. Focus on developing emerging industries (such as semiconductor chips, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, green energy conversion, e-commerce, etc.).

Promoting marine economic development, strengthening regional connectivity, developing smart cities associated with environmental protection, adapting to climate change... associated with doing a good job of planning.

Vietnam's advantages

At the seminar, delegates focused on discussing and assessing the forecast of the world economic outlook, identifying opportunities and challenges; issues to note and recommendations, solutions and policies necessary for sustainable development in the medium and long term of Vietnam.

Prime Minister with delegates who are leading US economists and researchers at the seminar.

Delegates also discussed solutions, mechanisms and policies that need to be implemented to continue improving the business investment environment, enhancing self-reliance, competitiveness and resilience of the economy.

At the same time, propose and recommend policies and solutions to promote industrial development, especially the processing and manufacturing industry; determine the roadmap and specific steps in implementing the country's industrialization and modernization in new conditions associated with green transformation, digital transformation, sustainable development, etc.; propose measures to promote and realize the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for peace, cooperation and sustainable development between Vietnam and the United States, promoting the advantages of each country, especially in key areas and driving forces of the bilateral relationship.

According to Professor Thomas Vallely, Vietnam has done a very good job of identifying and analyzing its problems, as well as finding ways to solve them. As a result, Vietnam has made very correct decisions when dealing with crisis situations, such as the recent Covid-19 pandemic, especially in the issue of vaccination, when the Government promptly shifted its direction in epidemic prevention and control and mobilized vaccine sources from around the world.

He appreciated that right after President Joe Biden's visit, the Vietnamese Government and the US Government developed an action plan to concretize the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two countries, especially in developing emerging industries.

According to Professor David Dapice, Chief Economist, Vietnam Program, Harvard Kennedy School, Vietnam is one of the countries with the fastest economic integration rate in the world, certainly Vietnam's growth is influenced by growth in the world and the region.

“I think that next year, the world economic growth will be slower than expected due to the impact of food security, climate change, and war. Developed economies such as the United States, Europe, Asia, etc. will all slow down. This will affect Vietnam's economic growth. Geopolitical fluctuations will also increase costs,” said Mr. David, asking what Vietnam needs to do?

Vietnam has a high potential to attract FDI, the production of leather and footwear, textiles and garments for export tends to shift because low-tech production does not help bring added value to Vietnam. Therefore, "Vietnam needs to increase the domestic content in its export products, further promote the scale of export activities, increase the value of export products so that Vietnam has a higher position in the supply chain", the Professor said.

However, he said that training high-quality human resources with skills is extremely necessary, Vietnam cannot do it alone. It is necessary to focus on training available high-quality human resources, first of all improving their skills.

Evidence from India, which has been training IT engineers since the 70s, currently accounts for 1% of the world's IT workforce. Therefore, Mr. David Dapic believes that Vietnam should consider this.

He said that Vietnam needs to diversify its export products and export markets; make more efforts to ensure economic self-reliance because Vietnam is in a favorable position to take advantage of investment shifts; and improve workers' skills, only then can it catch up with and surpass other countries in the region.

At the seminar, Vietnamese-American billionaire Chinh Chu assessed that Vietnam's economy has a bright future with a favorable position and this is the time for Vietnam to accelerate its development process. He said that it is necessary to strengthen cooperation with the United States in high-value industries such as technology and semiconductors, as well as attract foreign investment in priority areas, aiming for a leading position in the supply chain.

“Vietnam does not need to produce machinery such as televisions, dishwashers… Vietnam needs to cooperate with the United States to produce semiconductor chips,” said Mr. Chinh Chu.

At the same time, Mr. Chinh Chu advised Vietnam to choose to develop high-tech chips and expand cooperation with the EU such as the UK, Germany, and France.

Taking Singapore as an example, the country has established large government funds to promote investment, namely Temasek, he said that Vietnam should follow Singapore's model. The Singaporean government has been successful in establishing and using these funds, not only helping to increase domestic investment in production but also bringing good profits to the people. Vietnam should learn from Singapore's experience in this matter.

Overview of the discussion.

Billionaire Chinh Chu suggested that Vietnam needs to strengthen education and training activities and "may need to increase the number of highly skilled engineers 10 times to develop the high-tech industry".

He emphasized that the pillar of high-tech industry development must have high-quality human resources. Vietnam has favorable conditions, so it is necessary to speed up this process.

Professor Nguyen Thi Lien Hang, Columbia University, believes that Vietnam has the opportunity to become a strong country at the regional and global levels; she hopes that more and more Vietnamese students will study at Columbia University.

Suggesting ways to cope with current challenges, Ms. Hang said that challenges for countries like Vietnam may also create opportunities. The problem is to take advantage of opportunities, so it is necessary to manage demand well and strongly implement the reform process.

“Vietnam needs to have domestic stimulus solutions to offset the external decline. This year and next year, we need to expand,” Ms. Hang said.

Priority selection is required.

Concluding the discussion, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh highly appreciated the frank exchanges of American professors and economic experts.

With the guidance from experts, the head of the Vietnamese Government said that "priority should be selected", mainly focusing on emerging industries such as digital economy, green transformation, circular economy, and sharing economy. This should be accompanied by investment in information, energy, and social infrastructure.

The Prime Minister hopes that in the coming time, there will be opportunities to continue to exchange and discuss in depth and specifically each content in policy dialogues and thematic studies.

The Prime Minister emphasized that Vietnam must take appropriate steps in accordance with the conditions of a country with a transitional economy, moderate economic scale, high economic openness, and limited adaptability.

The Prime Minister hopes that in the coming time, there will be opportunities to continue to exchange and discuss in depth and specifically each content in policy dialogues, thematic studies... to continue to serve increasingly practically and effectively the development process of Vietnam.

Throughout the 35-year journey of innovation and development, Vietnam has always highly appreciated the valuable cooperation and support of international partners, including the United States. The Prime Minister expressed his gratitude and looked forward to continuing to receive support and cooperation from Harvard University, Columbia University and other US educational institutions, especially in the fields of education, training and policy advice. This is also a very important content of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for Peace, Cooperation and Sustainable Development between Vietnam and the United States.

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