TRANSCRIPT OF THE SPEECH BY NATIONAL ASSEMBLY DEPUTY NGUYỄN QUANG HUÂN AT THE PLENARY SESSION

Honourable Chairpersons,

Honourable National Assembly,

Against the backdrop of the extremely difficult COVID-19 pandemic, Vietnam’s GDP still recorded positive growth, reaching 2.9% in 2020 and estimated at around 3.5% this year. It can be said that these are very impressive results, demonstrating the efforts of the entire Party and people, and especially the Government’s very determined direction and leadership.

Clearly, economic development is already difficult amid a pandemic, but achieving rapid and sustainable development is even more challenging. Under the strategic objective set for 2030, Vietnam aims to become an upper-middle-income country, which means that average annual GDP growth will need to reach approximately 6.5% to 7%. However, if we achieve around 3.5% this year and 6.5% next year as set out in the report, while the Economic Committee’s appraisal report is still recommending that this target be reconsidered, then in the following years we will have to build momentum to achieve growth of 7% to 8% in order to make up for the initial years of this strategic period.

I also agree with Deputy Mạnh Hùng, who spoke before me, that we need to focus on labour productivity. I will not go into labour productivity in detail, but I would like to emphasize that we have very significant room to increase labour productivity. In the context of our goal of increasing GDP, we must now increase labour productivity because it is a very positive contributing factor. For example, if we take a comparative indicator, in 1990, China’s labour productivity was equivalent to Vietnam’s, but after 27 years, China had continuously increased its labour productivity by 8.98% per year, meaning it had increased 9.4 times, whereas we had increased only 3.74 times. Clearly, therefore, our labour productivity, if compared with the development models of South Korea and Japan in the past, is like a compressed spring. I believe this is an opportunity for it to be released if we focus on improving skills and technological innovation.

In the strategic objectives, regarding the environment, we have set a target of treating 70% of urban wastewater by 2030, which means that we will need to treat an additional approximately 2,750,000 m³ per day to achieve another 55%. This would require an investment of around VND 250 trillion. The socio-economic report also states that by 2022, we will collect and properly treat 89% of waste. I think we need to clearly define what “treatment to required standards” entails so that it is consistent with the provisions of Article 6 of the 2020 Law on Environmental Protection. At present, urban areas generate approximately 60,000 tonnes of waste per day. If we were to treat 50% of this waste through waste-to-energy incineration, in line with the spirit of Resolution No. 55, we would also need approximately VND 100 trillion. Thus, we would need as much as VND 350 trillion to achieve our waste and wastewater targets over the next 10 years, while ODA funding is declining sharply. We need to establish mechanisms now to attract private investment in these two sectors, enabling the private sector to contribute more to the country’s development and truly serve as one of the three pillars of a socialist-oriented market economy, as stated in the spirit of Resolution No. 10 of the 12th Party Central Committee.

Finally, I would like to address the need to prioritize the development of industrial parks and industrial cities, as these are areas experiencing very high rates of population growth due to migration. For example, in Bình Dương, as much as 60% of the population comes from outside the province, mainly workers and labourers. Therefore, we need policies to invest in and develop synchronized social and technical infrastructure so that workers can feel secure in their jobs, remain resilient in the face of pandemics, and contribute to maintaining production, thereby enabling these areas to serve as leading engines of economic development within the economic space, as set out in the 2021–2025 restructuring report, and to achieve the objectives approved by the 13th National Party Congress as well as the specific targets set out in the Government’s report for the five-year period and each year.

I have no further comments.

Thank you, National Assembly!

Speech video:

Source: People’s Deputies Newspaper