It is time to recover the economy

	Digital economy expected to account for 30% of GDP by 2030
	Covid-19 pandemic driving force to restructure economy more strongly
	The non-state economic sector has the lowest labor productivity

Vietnam is preparing for restarting the economy. Source: Internet

Actively support and limit losses

A decade after the 2008-2009 economic crisis, Vietnam's economy, together with the globaleconomy, experienced an unprecedented crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the past three months, the Government and its ministries and agencies have made every effort to realize the dual goal – both to combat epidemics and to ensure the best possible conditions to support the economy. The losses of businesses in particular and the economy in general have been measured with numbers up to thousands, even tens of thousands of billions. In difficulty, there are separate ways to adapt to pandemics.

At the Government's conference with localities and businesses, which was considered as the "Dien Hong Conference" against "the enemy" Covid-19, the Prime Minister had many strong messages with the goal of bringing the economy backrapidly after the epidemic ended. With the belief that "compression springs will burst to develop after the epidemic", the head of the Government has asked all localities, ministries and enterprises to immediately stop the stagnation of some branches and localities. Along with the drastic direction of the Prime Minister, a series of support packages and policies to helpthe business community and people overcome difficulties because of the pandemic was soon activated. The VND250 trillion credit support package has been proposed to increase to over VND300 trillion by the Prime Minister. The financial support package worth VND180 trillion, implemented by the Ministry of Finance, will cover 98% of domestic enterprises. The VND62 trillion package will support hardship for unemployed workers and many other people affected by the pandemic. These support packages were implemented simultaneously, showing the strong involvement of the Government in minimizing losses for businesses and the economy.

Immediately after the conference, Hanoi, a key area in economic development, was the first locality that had dialogues with businesses to remove obstacles and difficulties, discussing the scenario of economic recovery right after the first social distancing period.

Agricultural acceleration is a phrase emphasized by Party Secretary VuongDinh Hue at the conference, showing that this is a separate direction of Hanoi in the future. Recently, Hanoi has also directed many important and urgent issues on socio-economic development, such as increasing agricultural production, promoting Cat Linh - Ha Dong Railway project and key transport projects in the city; working on disbursement of public investment and 11 major corporations of the city.

It is known that Hanoi's economic growth in the first quarter did not meet the set plan of3.72%.Accordingly, Hanoi has set agrowth target of 1.3 times or more than the whole country. To help businesses overcome the pandemic, Hanoi's leaders pledged to continue reforming administrative procedures, arranging and reviewing 1,818 administrative procedures, 82% at level 3 and level 4 and setting goals will reach 100% in level 4 in April 2020. In addition, the city's support packages will be considered for the most effective implementation.

Do not wait for the epidemic to end

Facing choices or finding ways to survive and preparing the foundation to develop again after the epidemic, or closing or bankruptcy, many businesses have taken advantage of this time to overcome difficulties by reorganizing scale and production capacity, change product structure or boost online sales. In the field of real estate, when the market falls into a lull, many investors and real estate exchanges have responded quickly to difficulties by changing the method of selling goods from direct to online sales to adapt to social spacing.

For example, Northern Green Land, Cen Group, HaiPhat Land,these businesses continuously open many product marketing sessions online, thereby maintaining their activities and connection with customers. Assessing that real estate is not immune to Covid-19, even affected heavily, recently, Vingroup has just launched an online real estate trading floor.

A number of businesses have decided to go in the direction of commodity restructuring, proceeding to produce items that are still imported for sale on the domestic market, for example, Hoang Phat Company Limited (Thach That, Hanoi).

Recently, the Covid-19 epidemic broke the supply chain, so the supply of imported wood products from foreign countries was badly affected, causing many goods to be absent in the market. Facing this situation, Hoang Phat Co., Ltd. initially studied the items that were often imported from China such as baby cots and child dining chairs, and determined to change the type of product andsupply to the domestic market, creating jobs for workers.

For SOEs, especially large corporations under the State Capital Management Committee in Enterprises, the losses of 19 corporations and corporations under the Commission are enormous. Facing this situation, the Committee has asked enterprises to draw lessons, experiences, research and implement solutions to restructure the enterprises, diversify the market to supply raw materials, fuels, materials and machines, inputs of production activities, increasing the use of domestically produced raw materials, especially products of corporations under the Commission and diversifying products and consumption markets

Regarding the new direction for businesses to overcome Covid-19, Vu TienLoc, Chairman of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that the size of a market of nearly 100 million people is a great resource for the development of businesses and the economy. Businesses want to reach the world market, so they must consider the implementation of the "rooted, durable" strategy in the domestic market is important and enterprises of the major economies in the world will tend to return to the domestic market. Affirming that this will be a big trend after the epidemic, Vu TienLoc said that when businesses have difficulties in consumption markets, promoting the campaign "Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods" will be apractical action to support Vietnamese enterprises and propose to launch a peak wave of the movement "Vietnamese people give priority to using Vietnamese goods" lasting at least from now until the end of the last months of the year.

Thus, along with the positive and drastic efforts of the Government and localities, and actively taking advantage of opportunities of the business community in the current golden period, the economy is expected to overcome the difficult period soon to enter the recovery period and return to the development trajectory. Concerning this process, recognizing Vietnam's efforts to overcome the Covid-19 shock and the reality of disease control in Vietnam, economist Nguyen Tri Hieusaid that maybe in a short time, the social distancing order will be lifted, some industries will be able to produce normally. Expected to May, the economy began to enter the process of recovery.

However, according to Hieu, we should not hurry to expect economic growth to develop in a V-shape after reaching the bottom, but the time for economic recovery may extend, the growth path may follow the U-shape, or maybe W-shape, before crossing to return to the old orbit.

“The economy is not like power, it is quickly turned on and off, so the recovery time can last up to a year. Currently many businesses have to close, so it takes a lot of time to recover,”Nguyen Tri Hieu said.

On the other hand, public investment has become the spearhead of GDP growth in 2020 when receiving orders from the Prime Minister to disburse 100% of investment capital with a total capital of nearly VND700 trillion.