Comments on draft documents of the 14th National Party Congress: 'Consensus' between GDP and HDI

Photo caption — Garment exports, one of the products contributing to growth. Photo: Tran Viet/VNA

The draft Political Report of the 13th Party Central Committee at the 14th Party Congress requires GDP growth to go hand in hand with improving HDI.

The Draft Report sets out the following goals: In the economic field, in the next 5 years (2026 - 2030), strive to achieve an average GDP growth rate of 10%/year or more; GDP per capita by 2030 will reach about 8,500 USD.

In the social field, strive to achieve an HDI index of 0.78; the average life expectancy of Vietnamese people is about 75.5 years, of which at least 68 years are healthy; the poverty reduction rate (according to the multidimensional poverty standard for the period 2026 - 2030) is 1 - 1.5%/year.

HDI is an important index for a country to show the level of social equality and quality of life of its people. Specifically, there are three groups of criteria: Health (long and healthy life, measured by average life expectancy); Knowledge (measured by average years of schooling and expected years of schooling); Income (measured by gross national income - GNI - per capita).

The Human Development Report (HDR) has been published by the United Nations almost every year since 1990, and the HDI is ranked on a scale from 0 to 1, with 0 being the lowest and 1 being the highest.

According to the HDR 2025 Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Vietnam published on May 12, 2025, Vietnam's HDI in 2023 will reach 0.766, ranked among the countries with high human development (ranked 93rd out of 193 countries and territories, up 14 places compared to 2022). From 1990 to 2023, Vietnam's HDI has increased from 0.499 to 0.766, an increase of 53.5%.

In contrast to the increase in HDI, the multidimensional poverty rate decreases every year. Vietnam is the first country in Asia to apply the multidimensional poverty standard, and is in the top 30 in the world .

Our country has issued poverty standards 8 times in the direction of gradually increasing people's basic needs through the following periods: 1993-1995; 1995-1997; 1997-2000; 2001-2005; 2006-2010; 2011-2015; 2016-2020, 2021-2025.

From the period 2016-2020, we will begin to apply the "multidimensional poverty standard" including criteria on income, level of lack of access to basic social services (health, education ; housing, water and sanitation, information); criteria for poor households, near-poor households, and middle-income households.

In the 2021-2025 period, the multidimensional poverty measurement criteria include income criteria (rural areas: 1,500,000 VND/person/month, urban areas: 2,000,000 VND/person/month).

In 1993, poor households in our country accounted for 58.1%, in 2015 it was 9.88% and by 2024 the number of poor households according to the multidimensional poverty standard was only 1.93% (nearly 600,000 households). Including both poor and near-poor households, the figure in 2024 was 4.06% (more than 1.2 million households), a decrease of 1.65% compared to 2023.

Most recently, according to the Summary Report on the Implementation Results of the Socio-Economic Development Plan for 2025 and the 5-year period 2021-2025; the Government 's projected Socio-Economic Development Plan for 2026, the multidimensional poverty rate will decrease from 4.4% in 2021 to 1.3% in 2025.

Along with the increase in income, the life expectancy of Vietnamese people has increased. The average life expectancy of our people has made a leap - from about 38 years old in 1945, to 60 years old in the period 1975 - 1980 and reaching 74.5 years old at present.

Currently, our country has nearly 432,000 medical staff, reaching 14 doctors per 10,000 people, with 1,645 hospitals, including 34 central hospitals and nearly 500 provincial hospitals. Vietnam is aiming to exempt hospital fees for all people in the period from 2030 to 2035.

Vietnam exempts tuition fees for all students (more than 22 million students) from preschool (from 3 months old) to the end of public high school nationwide from the 2025-2026 school year. Non-public students (about more than 1 million students) will receive a state budget subsidy equal to public tuition fees.

In our country, for a long time, GDP growth has always been consistent with HDI improvement. That is because our Party and State have determined: For a country to develop, prosper, and be strong, the ultimate goal is still to make the people happy. The 13th Party Congress set out the motto of action: "People know, people discuss, people do, people check, people supervise, people enjoy".

People enjoying the fruits of national development is the proposition to improve the human development index.

Talking about the Politburo's Resolutions to bring Vietnam into a new era, General Secretary To Lam emphasized: Action programs must be implemented resolutely and systematically, taking actual effectiveness as a measure of capacity and work results. Continue to make recommendations and proposals to build new resolutions according to the motto "All benefits are for the people. All powers belong to the people" as Uncle Ho taught.

GDP growth coupled with HDI improvement is not a given in every country in the world.

There are still countries with significant GDP growth but HDI is stagnant or lagging far behind. This means that economic development does not create the driving force to push up education, health care and living standards.

If economic growth relies only on industries that use a lot of cheap labor, the general standard of living of the people will not improve and there will be a lack of social equity.

Unsustainable economic growth due to the depletion of resources or the export of cheap goods does not improve workers' incomes, pollutes the environment and makes the future of the next generation uncertain.

The benefits of GDP growth are not evenly distributed or policy priorities are unreasonable, such as investing heavily in large projects to boost GDP growth and less in public services such as health and education. This also does not help to improve the HDI index.

Regarding Vietnam's national development strategy in the new period, the Draft Political Report clearly states: Establishing a new growth model, taking science and technology, innovation, national digital transformation as the main driving force and private economic development as the most important driving force; perfecting development institutions associated with synchronous implementation of four transformations: Digital transformation, green transformation, energy transformation, transformation of structure and quality of human resources; attracting and utilizing talents, promoting the development of new productive forces.