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Drastic anti-inflation steps necessary: PM
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung Wednesday called on the Government and relevant ministries to take drastic measures to stabilise macro economics and prevent inflation from passing 7 per cent.
Last year, inflation reached nearly 7 per cent.
Dung was speaking at a regular meeting of the Government to review economic growth.
The meeting reviewed socio-economic development and macro-economic management for the first quarter of the year.
It also considered measures to stabilise macro-economics, restrain inflation and obtain 6.5-per-cent growth this year.
Participants agreed with the Minister of Planning and Investment, Vo Hong Phuc, who said that Government policies on finance, monetary regulations, foreign exchange rates and investment encouragement had helped restrain inflation.
Budget collection for the first four months accounted for more than 29 per cent of the year's total estimate, and was higher than in the same period last year.
Development investment from the State budget reached 26.7 per cent of the year's plan.
Exports have reached US$20.16 billion, an 8.9-per-cent increase compared to the same period last year. The consumer price index growth slowed down to 0.14 per cent last month, the lowest so far this year.
In the first four months, about 475,000 jobs were created, 11.3 per cent higher than in the same period last year. About 30,500 Vietnamese found work overseas.
The Government has introduced a policy to increase subsidies to social welfare recipients by 50 per cent. Poor people from 16 provinces and more than 1.8 million people who have contributed to national causes received a total of about 35.7 tonnes of rice and gifts worth VND378 billion ($19.9 million) during the last Lunar New Year.
In a move to improve living standards, the Government raised the minimum salaries of public servants on May 1. The minimum salary is now VND730,000 ($38), an increase of VND80,000.
In replying to concerns about the risk of the CPI rising following the hike, the head of the Government Office, Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said no more currency would be minted this year.
"The (Minimum salary) increase has been on the Government's roadmap for a long time and the cash will be from the State budget," said Phuc. "It will not have any impact on consumption or increase inflation as goods prices will be under control."
The State Bank is said to have managed the monetary policies carefully yet flexibly in response to Government measures to balance supply and demand, stabilise prices, increase investment capacity, promote exports and stabilise the market.
"Commercial banks have managed to decrease lending rates, which has had a positive impact on economic development in the past few months," said State Bank Deputy Governor Nguyen Dong Tien.
"The State Bank will closely manage the credit market and apply necessary measures to ensure credit growth."
Dung confirmed that the socio-economic development had done well so far this year with increases in industry, services and tourism.
"We have handled macro economics in a way that the CPI is likely to go down, lending rates are gradually decreasing, and exports are increasing. This means we are reducing the excess of imports over exports," he said.
To reduce the trade gap, which is an emerging economic issue, the Prime Minister asked ministries, sectors and local governments to increase exports while limiting the import of unnecessary goods and products.
He also urged them again to support the "Made In Viet Nam" movement.
To fulfil socio-economic development goals this year, Dung said five tasks had to be carried out. Apart from applying drastic measures to stabilise macro economics, relevant sectors and bodies would have to increase development investment, ensure social security, simplify administration processes, and fight a stronger battle against corruption.
In reviewing the Government's Project 30, which is to renovate and simplify the administration process, Phuc, who is also head of the working team in charge of the job said around 5,500 administration procedures had been checked.
The minister said the project's third stage would focus on applying information technology in renovating the administration process.
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