RESOLUTION

THE GOVERNMENT’S REGULAR MEETING - JUNE 2006

On June 30 and July 1, 2006, the Government convened its regular meeting for June 2006 to evaluate the socio-economic situation and review the guidance of the Government in the first six months as well as discuss the missions and the working program for the second half of 2006.

1. In the first six months, the Government has concentrated on directing the implementation of the promulgated Working Program; institutionalized and implemented the policies and guidelines of the Communist Party and the State in all fields such as economy, national defense and security, foreign affairs, and administrative reform; further perfected the regulations on socialist-oriented market economy; actively integrated into the international economy; promoted the mobilization of investment capital for development to improve investment efficiency, avoid loss and waste in construction investment; intensified the popularization of social work; at the same time, timely and effectively dealt with adverse changes in the market price, natural calamities and epidemics; and continued the administrative reform, prevention of corruption and prodigality, and thrift practice.

The Government as a whole, the Prime Minister and all members of the Government have showed their high sense of responsibility and determination to effectively direct and handle their assignments; well implemented the Resolutions of the Party Central Committee, the National Assembly and the Government to ensure a comprehensive and consistent performance, both stabilizing macroscopic balance and timely and effectively dealing with unexpected and urgent problems. The co-ordination between the Government and the agencies of the Party, National Assembly, Fatherland Front and the mass organizations has been maintained with increasingly effective and practical activities. With the drastic management in combination with intensified inspection and supervision, the Government’s guidance and management has attained significant achievements.

The economic growth rate (GDP) has remained fairly high (estimated 7.4%); industrial production value has been kept at a high level. Despite unusual climatic changes and epidemics for crops, poultry and cattle, the agricultural production has been stabilized. Export turnover has reached a high growth rate. Service activities have continued to develop. The investment in social development and foreign direct investment have kept increasing. The collection of State budget has been fairly high; the State expenditure has basically met the proposed demand. Monetary and credit activities have been stable. The consumer price index during the first six months of 2006 has increased by 4%, lower than that of the same period in 2005 (5.2%) and under control. The preparations for the World Trade Organization (WTO) accession and international economic integration have developed smoothly. Achievements have been gained in many fields: culture-information, education and training, science-technology, environmental protection, job generation, poverty alleviation, disease prevention, national defense and security, and socio-politic stability.

2. Nevertheless, the economic growth rate (GDP) in the first six months was lower than the same period last year (7.6%) and lower than the set norm (8.0%). In order to reach the whole year’s norm of 8%, the growth rate in the second half must be higher than 8.6%. Agricultural production has encountered many difficulties, its growth rate quite low. Production cost in many industrial branches was still high, leading to the weak competitiveness of many products. The domestic market still contained some latent factors causing price fluctuations, particularly that of oil, petrol and the primary input materials for production and business. Economic growth mainly was unstable; growth quality and competitiveness low. There were many loopholes in the management mechanism of the construction investment. Some social issues still faced sharp difficulties, especially job generation, provision of skilled labor to industrial parks, export processing zones, and labor export; improvement of working conditions; food safety; prevention of diseases and industrial accidents; complicated development of crimes, social evils and traffic accidents; improper settlement of complaints and denouncements.

The projects within the working program in the first six months have been fulfilled with low efficiency; many projects prepared with low quality; the institutions set up slow. There have remained a large number of instructive documents regarding the realization of effective laws and ordinances; some documents bear contradictory and inadequate regulations.

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3.1. To promote the development of production and business, enhance the economic growth rate. To promptly promulgate an adequate and comprehensive set of instructions and to well implement the laws on business and investment, contributing to the drastic development of business of all kinds. To further check and reject inappropriate regulations, especially “minor licenses,” which impede investment, production and business activities.

To promote the reform of state-owned enterprises. To concentrate in solving difficulties for the enterprises, particularly non-State ones in order to facilitate their development. To pay attention to the vocational training, observe labor laws, ensure the industrial safety and hygiene in the enterprises. To take necessary measures to speed up agro-forestry and aquaculture.

To intensify epidemic prevention in agricultural production, first and foremost the mouth-and-foot pandemic, to actively prevent the recrudescence of the avian influenza as well as encourage the concentrated husbandry, restore the herds of cattle and poultry after the pandemic.

To actively forecast and prevent natural calamities, minimize the impacts caused by natural calamities on the people’s life and production. To check the dyke protection projects, repair the water reservoirs, dams and riverside projects; reinforce the dykes at the important places, especially the Red River Dyke system and breakwaters in the North and the northern part of Central Vietnam.

To promulgate appropriate policies and mechanisms, promote the diversified development and exploit the strong points of services, particularly finance, insurance, credit, tourism, transportation in order to create a new development, improve the quality of service products and their competitiveness in domestic and international markets.

3.2. To continue guiding the promotion of export, especially products of advantages and large market-shares. To better carry out the trade promotion, expand the traditional markets; at the same time, search for new export markets. To boost the market trend forecast, particularly in big markets.

The functional ministries and branches should provide more market information and trade promoting supports to enterprises. To set up and widely popularize the bilateral agreements signed with the United States and other countries, specify the advantages and challenges emerging after the WTO accession so that the enterprises can be active in making use of advantages in production and export as well as proposing solutions to minimize negative impacts of economic integration. To promote and encourage the standardization and mutual recognition in technical standards, food safety and quarantine system between Vietnam and foreign partners, especially EU, the US, and Japan.

3.3. To increase development investment and investment efficiency is the decisive solution to the growth rate. To quickly disburse the investment capital from the State budget, ODA capital, State credit, government bonds, and government securities for education. To instantly solve any problem impeding investment activities in mechanism, policy and thinking.

To further devolve in licensing and managing foreign direct investment. To simplify, publicize and clarify administrative procedures in investment, especially regulations on land, construction, customs, and tax, in order to lower investment costs, raise the competitiveness of investment environment, thus taking advantage of favorable international conditions to create new foreign investment waves to Vietnam after its WTO accession. To enhance the renovation of investment and construction management; supplement and perfect policies and regimes; set up consistent documents instructing the execution of laws and decrees on construction investment. To reorganize the project management boards; complete and issue the statutes on organization and operation of ODA project management boards; construct and implement the roadmap to avoid closed investment and construction; intensify the supervision and inspection of the construction quality, pay special attention to the management of the quality of infrastructure works with a view to effectively preventing corruption and prodigality, improving the project’s quality. To clearly define responsibilities of organizations and individuals who are design consultants, supervisors and contractors participating in the construction.

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3.5. To stabilize macroscopic balances of the economy, to control and stabilize the domestic market, to ensure that the price growth rate is lower than the GDP growth rate; to avoid price escalation and lack of goods; to intensify market management, prevent and strictly deal with unreasonable price increases, restrict the chain impacts of the increase in oil and petrol price.

To organize a good network of agents linked with big manufacturers and distributors to assure the price control. At the same time, to practice thrift, reduce consumption of raw materials. To strictly control price fixation and cost prices of exclusive products, especially primary materials.

To ensure the management of financial policy in combination with monetary policy, stabilize macroscopic balances. To carry out monetary policies in a careful and flexible way; to frequently use monetary policies as tools in well serving economic development goals and restraining inflation. To regulate and stabilize the exchange rate, interest and balance of foreign currency; to ensure the sufficient supply of foreign currency in the import of important materials, particularly oil and petrol, iron and steel, and some other essential chemicals and materials.

To take measures against smuggling, trade fraud and counterfeit commodities; to avoid loss in tax collection and other revenues to the State budget. To strictly control the spending from the State budget, avoid the spending higher than the estimate, advance and borrowing without payment, especially in construction.

3.6. To effectively solve urgent social issues: To intensify the prevention of epidemics, especially summer diseases and new ones. To well implement the renovation in education and training, resolutely eradicate negative phenomena in this field; to well organize the tertiary-level entrance examination; to carry out the program of school and class solidification; to raise the qualifications of teachers, education management staff, and vocational training staff; to set up a complete vocational training system in connection with labor market and business career of the youth, gradually meeting the demands for highly-skilled labor force of industrial parks, export processing zones and labor export. To speed up the poverty reduction and hunger elimination, especially for ethnic minorities and remote areas; to issue supportive regulations and policies to help the poor to get out of poverty in a sustainable way. To further control and restrict the strikes in enterprises, industrial parks and export processing zones. To take more measures on restraining, then gradually reducing traffic jams and accidents, restoring traffic safety and order; drastically fight against and prevent crimes and social evils.

3.7. It is urgent to continue the administrative reform; practice thrift and avoid prodigality; intensify anti-corruption. The ministries, branches and localities should carry out specific actions in their working programs to execute laws on anti-corruption, thrift practicing and prodigality prevention through effective preventive mechanisms and strict and clear settlement, creating a change in the awareness and actions at all echelons, branches and the whole society.

The Government affirms its determination in the struggle against corruption, prodigality, and negative phenomena, first and foremost in such fields as land management, investment in capital construction, management on the State capital and assets and State-owned enterprises. The leaders of any unit, from the central to local levels, must bare full responsibilities for preventing corruption and prodigality, practicing thrift, inspecting the performance of their junior civil servants. The Ministry of Public Security shall promptly complete the investigation on the pressing corruption cases. The ministries, branches and localities must have specific plans to enhance the quality of recruiting, using, training, and fostering civil servants; to punish any officials who make use of their competence to harass and annoy the people and enterprises; to expel the degenerated and corruptive officials out of the apparatus.

In the last six months, to comprehensively check and evaluate the establishment, organization and operation of the organizations with consultative and inter-disciplinary coordinating functions; to propose projects on the rearrangement of these organizations, especially inter-disciplinary ones headed by the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Ministers, persistently making them effective, streamlined and useful; to maintain only the really necessary organizations which can assist the Prime Minister in studying, guiding, and solving important and inter-disciplinary issues beyond the ministers’ competence. Pursuant to the similar principle, each ministry, branch and locality must promptly check and rearrange their own inter-disciplinary organizations. The ministries, ministerial-level agencies, governmental offices, centrally-administered cities and provinces must combine administrative reform with anti-corruption, prodigality prevention, and thrift practice, considering it one of their own main tasks.

3.8. To create dramatic changes in building institutions and renovating the direction and management of the Government and State administrative offices. To promptly promulgate the action program to realize the 10th Party Congress Resolution and the National Assembly Resolution on the five-year plan 2006-2010. To speed up the process of studying, drafting, assessing, and investigating; to strengthen the coordination among the ministries and agencies in building up legal documents. From now till the end of the year, it is necessary to deal with the unsolved documents instructing the execution of laws and ordinances.

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ON BEHALF OF THE GOVERNMENT
PRIME MINISTER




Nguyen Tan Dung