Establishing a high-level policy dialogue channel to promote public finance reform

The meeting of the public finance partnership group

The important role of public finance

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc said that, over the years, the support of development partners and sponsors had made active and practical contributions to strategic breakthroughs of the Finance sector such as perfecting the financial legal framework, improving the efficiency of mobilizing and allocating public financial resources, renovating professional processes in the financial sector; modernizing the infrastructure of the Finance sector and strengthening the capacity of officers of the Finance sector.

According to Minister Ho Duc Phoc, the advice, sharing and consensus on financial policies and measures issued and implemented actively contributed to supporting the Ministry of Finance to promptly respond to the Covid-19 pandemic and economic recovery post-pandemic, while effectively implementing the medium and long-term goals of the Finance sector.

The Minister said that, in the next 10 years, the task of public finance reform, especially financial institution reform, financial sector modernization, and human resource quality improvement would continue to play an important role in stabilizing the macro-economy, ensuring social life and effectively implementing the objectives of economic restructuring in association with renovating the growth model, developing the digital economy, and promoting rapid growth.

Therefore, the Ministry of Finance wished to listen to the suggestions of development partners and sponsors about the achievements of the Finance sector, challenges and recommendations on future fiscal policy measures to complete the financial sector's strategic priorities from now to 2030.

At the conference, Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Xuan Ha summarized Vietnam's socio-economic development results in 2021; the administration of fiscal policy in 2021 and orientations in 2022; results of coordination between the Ministry of Finance and donors in reforming the public financial system.

The Deputy Minister said that in the future, the Ministry of Finance would continue to reform the financial system, especially public finance, on the basis of three pillars.

The first was about policy. The ministry would continue to perfect the policy, in which reform and decentralization of policy, policy on tax improvement, public financial management, speeding up the equitization of state-owned enterprises, and capital management in business.

The second was about procedures, continuing administrative reform, improving the business investment environment, completing procedures, especially those on tax management, customs, and budget expenditure, with the support of information technology and digital transformation.

The third was about staff, focusing on improving officers’ capacity, especially policymakers and supervisors, building job positions for officers.

Effective implementation of fiscal policy administration

Speaking at the conference, Mrs. Carolyn Turk, World Bank Country Director for Vietnam, said that this conference was topical when Vietnam was implementing a package to support economic recovery and development to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mrs. Carolyn Turk congratulated the Government of Vietnam on approving the policy package which would be implemented through public investment and tax incentives. This promulgation had stimulated private consumption. It was also a factor supporting Vietnam's green growth.

According to the World Bank Country Director for Vietnam, public finance reform led by the Ministry of Finance had contributed to an effective public financial management system. This system had shown its resilience during the last crisis.

At the conference, the delegates shared and assessed the implementation of Vietnam's fiscal policy in 2021, the fiscal policy orientation in 2022 and the coming years.

At the same time, re-evaluating the results of cooperation in the field of public finance, study the possibility of cooperation in the future in order to contribute to the realization of the important goals and priority tasks of the Finance sector to 2030.

Speaking at the closing of the conference, Minister Ho Duc Phoc acknowledged and thanked the contributions of development partners and affirmed that he would continue to thoroughly study these ideas to promptly give policies to the Government and effectively implement the management of fiscal policy in the future.

The Ministry of Finance wished to establish a more frequent high-level policy dialogue channel to listen and discuss more deeply and specifically with development partners and sponsors on the topics of public finance.