Gov’t reviews seven-month socioeconomic performance

The Cabinet's regular meeting, July 30-31, 2012 - Photo: VGP

The Cabinet members came to this agreement at their regular meeting held on July 30-31 to discuss socioeconomic performance in the reviewed period.

In July, CPI increased by 2.22% against last December and 5.35% against the same period last year, statistics show.

During the past months, the Government has taken a series of measures to slash interest rate levels. In response, credit institutions began to pull the interest rate to 15% since mid-July. Currently, annual interest rates for agriculture and rural development, export, supporting industries, small and medium-sized enterprises range from 11-13%, for other fields from 12-16%.

The foreign currency market is recovering and banking system’s liquidity is improving, the Government noted.

The total export turnover in the first seven months was estimated at over US$62.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19%. Meanwhile, total import value reached US nearly US$63 billion, up 7.3% against the same period last year.

Regarding the outcomes of the Resolution 13, the Government said some 208,250 turns of enterprises were offered six-month extension of value added tax (VAT) payment of April, May and June of 2012 with a total of nearly VND 10,000 billion.

The Government also extended the deadline of corporate tax payment for some 8,260 enterprises and reduced 50% of land fees for more than three million others.

The industrial production index in July climbed by 3.2% against the previous month and 6.1% against the same period last year.

The total retail sales of goods and services was estimated to increase 18.7% and tourism sector welcomed 3.83 million turns of foreigners, up 10.8% on year.

Other positive signals include a 1.7% increase in job creation and a 22.1% decrease in traffic accidents.

Besides, the Cabinet members also acknowledged challenges, including low growth, limited credit access, low domestic purchasing power, high inventory, and rising number of businesses that declared bankruptcy or production standstill.

Special care for credit access

Concluding the meeting, PM Nguyen Tan Dung stressed that the economy is performing positively as expected. More positive signals have been recorded in curbing inflation, stabilizing macro-economy, and accelerating agricultural and industrial production.

Top priorities include accelerating production, reining in inflation, stabilizing macro-economy and restructuring the economy toward higher efficiency, quality and competitiveness, he affirmed.

PM Dung went on to say that special care is needed to meet businesses’ capital demand and banks must work with businesses to ease their financial pressure.

The Government will continue pursuing an effective fiscal policy in close combination with credit and monetary policies in a bid to beef up the total demand and maintain a reasonable inflation rate.

The PM also asked for quick review and restructuring of State-owned enterprises to raise their production efficiency in core-business lines.

By Hai Minh