Find out the “disease” of project waste

Mr. Tran Anh Tuan

On the sidelines of the Industry and Trade sector review conference which took place on January 6, 2017, Mr. Tran Tuan Anh spoke to the press about the “commands” that Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has given.

In the conclusion of the Industry and Trade sector review conference taking place on January 6, 2017, the Prime Minister has set some missions for the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the coming period. So what are the priority tasks, sir?

About the missions that the Prime Minister has given, I think there are some issues to concentrate on fiercely.

The first is to make effort to reform administrative procedures and strengthen institutions. The business environment must free up productive forces, facilitate all economic sectors equally to access the market, and exploit the country’s resources to serve economic-social development.

We are going through a stage of “life or death” when taking deeper integration into the global economy, if the competitiveness of the economy, products, and enterprises are not ensured, we will lose.

The second thing also related to the integration. We had the deep and wide integration “framework”, and a big chance to reach foreign markets but how to use the tools of integration. Besides improving competitiveness, protecting domestic production, and domestic markets by using suitable measures with integration commitments are necessary.

The third is innovating for growth models. Growth models definitely are not overheating in speed, but it must look ahead at the quality and depth of growth. That means, technology content, labor productivity and the total factor must plan an essential role in the value added and value of products. There must be a connection between State agencies facilitating enterprises in application of technology to encourage them to improve labor productivity and administration.

The fourth is to continue to innovate the State-owned enterprises, and reorganize effectively. Besides, perfecting institutions is necessary to make better administration of enterprises, national resources, avoid corruption, waste and inefficiency, at the same time, solving remaining problems (thousand trillion vnd projects – reporter) causing disturbance in the society.

What we fear is not only that the huge value of those projects will be wasted, but it to also to find the “disease”, the root cause of the problem, to resolve. The handling and overcoming is not simple by solving those projects, we must draw on experience to complete the institution and law to prevent, and ensure it does not happen again.

The Prime Minister has emphasized 12 projects worth trillion vnd and confirmed to drastically boost equitization and not invest the State buget more in those projects. How will the Ministry of Industry and Trade solve this problem?

Shortly after having questions in the Assembly, the Government has taken concrete steps and has decided to establish a Steering Committee of the Government and the Steering Committee of the Ministry of Industry and Trade to deal with projects backlog.

The MOIT leader will collaborate with leaders of groups, corporations, and enterprises managing those projects to examine and evaluate the whole projects on property values, feasibility, effectiveness to find solutions to recover State assets, and reduce the loss of social resources. If the project is feasible, and has a chance to recover and develop, it will be allowed to do so.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade will consider to clarify the responsibility of individuals, and units related to such projects, from which to handle under the legal framework. On the other hand, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other managing ministries related should draw on experience to complete the legal framework, ensure the management of state-owned enterprises and public investment resources and not allow to happen the situation from approval status, management until the implemention of the project with the risk of loss of capital, assets, and corruption.

About innovation issues, the arrangement of state enterprises is a major orientation of the Government and is still in progress. Over time, despite being on schedule, the quality of divestment, and equitization is unsatisfactory. Thus, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will draw on experience in perfecting institutions, specific guidance for enterprises to implement more favorably. Because, equitization is not merely divestments, successfully sold shares but it is also to avoid loss of State assets, and satisfactorily resolved issues related to workers…

In addition to the issues above, the Prime Minister has mentioned about ensuring the balance of the essential needs of the economy, and restructuring of the Industry and Trade sector with aims of “having a number of products as the strength of Vietnam in the 4th industrial revolution”. How will the Ministry of Industry and Trade do this?

With a large-scale economu of 100 million people, GDP growth of 7% per year, you can see how big the input needs for the economy as well as the need for people's lives such as electricity, gasoline, basic demands. Especially in the current context of integration, greater pressure for all sectors, we must compete with foreign products and make sure to avoid dependence on external sources which leads to instability.

The Prime Minister has said many times about the export growth but not forgotten the requirement to ensure sustainable exports. That means we do not allow to depend on export markets, and are unable to expect in some sectors having a temporary advantage, rely on a number of incentives of markets given in the framework of the free trade agreements. In order to do this work, we must reorganize production to ensure competitiveness, especially the competitiveness based on factors having high value-added such as high-tech, and labor productivity.

In particular, in the context of the fourth industrial revolution, there are some problems for Industry and Commerce, as well as the economy of 2017. For example, the textile industry, footwear using large numbers of workers will face huge pressure from robotics, automation and computerization.

Thanks Sir!