National committee setup proposed for economic restructuring National Assembly (NA) Deputy, Truong Trong Nghia, of HCM City proposed setting up a national committee on economic restructuring at a meeting on October 24.   National committee setup proposed for economic restructuring According to Deputy Nghia, the committee must include the participation of the NA, independent consultants assigned with certain rights. The committee would be active from 2014. He made the privatisation story of EVN an example, saying, “EVN alone can’t fulfill its own restructure plans because it would affect labourers and worker's benefits. The work really needs support from an outside agency. If this does not happen NA deputies will have to continue spending time on discussing problems related to economic restructure in the next sessions.” He also cited a Japanese professor who said that investors have shown less interest in the Vietnamese market. He pointed out that it is low-technology, lax tax management mechanisms and cheap but low-skilled labour would eventually discourage foreign investors. Nghia also noted that Vietnam should try to overcome the "middle-income trap" as early as possible. Public debt forecast to reach VND2,000 trillion this year Dr. Tran Hoang Ngan, a NA Deputy from HCM City, said that, despite the global economic downturn, Vietnam’s export value has still increased by 15% to 16% per year. The country received higher overseas remittances, expected to come out to USD11 billion this year alone. Between 2006 and 2010, Vietnam incurred a large trade deficit, but since 2011, the deficit has dropped sharply, and is forecast to go down to USD1 billion this year. However, the nation still faces many marco-economic difficulties, including state budget deficit and high public debts forecast to climb to VND2,074 trillion (USD97.83 billion) this year. Meanwhile, the number of enterprises that went bankrupt or have completely stopped operations is up, causing job losses. In the real estate sector, the situation continues on a bleak path, while efficiency of public investment has not considerably improved. Dr. Tran Hoang Ngan said that in addition to restructuring public investment, state-owned enterprises and banks, the government should also restructure the private sector. The government needs to pledge to control long-term inflation rates and loan interest rates for private businesses, he added. At the meeting, Dr. Tran Du Lich suggested setting a target for GDP growth of 6% per year for the period between 2014 and 2015. Meanwhile, inflation rate should be curbed at 7% during the period. “The government has proposed raising the target budget deficit at 5.3% between 2014 and 2015, More important, however, is the problem of easing barriers to credit growth. If credit growth fails to climb to 15%, the national economy may suffer from the effects of continued sluggish development,” Lich warned. By Nguyen Hien | dtinews.vn