New Year Messages Affirming a New Economic Growth Outlook

In his Tet greetings for the Year of the Snake 2024, President Vo Van Thuong emphasized important socioeconomic development orientations. Specifically, he noted the need to “harness the collective strength of the entire nation and the good values of Vietnamese culture and people, elevate dignity, intelligence, and unleash creativity in every individual, unlock potential, optimize resources, to create a great internal strength that will propel our nation to achieve even greater accomplishments.”

The above messages from the President are concise but profound. In particular, the head of state emphasized the need to unlock creativity in every individual, unleash potential, and optimize resources to stimulate growth and development.

In his role as the head of the government, with the guiding principle for 2024 being “Discipline, proactive and timely action, accelerated innovation, sustainable effectiveness,” Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has emphasized the message of “Only progress, no backward steps,” especially with regard to the country’s key projects in 2024 such as the 500kV power line circuit 3 project, and the Long Thanh airport project.

Most recently, in Directive No. 06/CT-TTg dated February 15, 2024, the Prime Minister issued a requirement to focus on immediate task execution, not allowing delays to affect production, business activities, and socio-economic activities, especially for tasks that have been postponed due to the Tet holiday. At the same time, proactive and effective policy responses, solutions, and determinations should be implemented, particularly for issues that are complex and have persisted for an extended period, as well as for arising matters…

The spirit of the high-level Party and State leadership’s messages has been widely disseminated. A new feature this year is that from the beginning of the year, many ministers and commanders have emphasized the central directives for management and specific tasks, while also affirming their responsibilities to voters and the people nationwide, in order to foster unity, cooperation, and consensus.

A common feature of the messages from members of the government is the high expectations placed on the development of legal documents governing their respective sectors, addressing dormant issues, overlapping regulations, and slow administrative procedures. Additionally, the responsibilities of the leaders are also highlighted.

For the Ministry of Home Affairs, according to Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra, comprehensive priority is given to focusing resources on building and improving institutional frameworks and policies in the field of home affairs, with a focus on renewal and enhancing the quality and effectiveness of organizational structures, public servants, local government building, improving the quality and efficiency of commune-level government activities, and advancing public service and public servants reforms, essentially improving the public service mode based on job positions, which are among the top priorities of the sector, in order to meet practical requirements.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung asserts that public investment must be the top priority in 2024 for consistent governance. “Next, to ensure fundamental solutions, a review and completion of the legal system regulating the operation of public investment projects is necessary. First, promptly address the detected inadequacies to promote the disbursement of public investment capital, improve capital utilization efficiency, and provide momentum for socio-economic development,” said Minister Nguyen Chi Dung.

As a multi-sectoral economic sector, the strong message from the Ministry of Industry and Trade in 2024, according to Minister Nguyen Hong Dien, is “Inheriting and innovating to continue reaching new heights.” Emphasizing that although the sector has not fully achieved the set goals, in the specific context of the country and in comparison with other countries in the region and the world, these are results to be proud of.

Minister Nguyen Hong Dien shared that the first month of 2024 for the Industry and Trade sector recorded positive developments. Industrial production grew by 18.3%, with processing and manufacturing industries increasing by 19.3%. Import-export activities continued to reach record highs with a growth rate of 37.7%, of which exports increased by 42% and imports increased by 33.3% compared to the same period last year. The import-export turnover reached a record high of $66.22 billion with a trade surplus of $2.92 billion. Along with that, the domestic market is stable, with supply and demand of goods ensured, and the macroeconomy is generally stable.

Based on these practical realities, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien clearly stated that in 2024, the Industry and Trade sector must strive to achieve the assigned goals while overcoming the weaknesses pointed out by relevant agencies. Therefore, 2024 will continue to be a challenging year for the sector, but the sector’s leaders believe and hope that the key leaders of the units under the ministry, along with the entire staff of civil servants and employees in the sector, will continue to uphold the illustrious tradition of over 70 years of construction and development, unite and make concerted efforts to achieve new heights in the new year.

For the Construction sector, a dedicated direction pursued in the past year is its focus on perfecting legal frameworks to enhance state management capabilities, while creating a favorable, transparent environment and strong decentralization for localities. Minister Nguyen Thanh Nghi stated that this effort will be further expanded in 2024.

The requirement set by the head of the Construction sector is that by enhancing the above-mentioned objectives in 2024, when workloads are high, time is tight, and high quality is demanded, “more than ever, each unit leader responsible for their assigned tasks must continue to improve and fulfill their responsibilities to complete their tasks successfully,” emphasized Minister Nguyen Thanh Nghi.

Economic growth must go hand in hand with digital transformation; this is also an urgent requirement in the present context. Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung emphasized the importance of a new mindset, which is instructional guidance, in the form of “holding hands to guide.” Here, according to Minister Nguyen Manh Hung, each department of the ministry must annually plan to provide guidance for the actions that provincial authorities need to take and how to do it in their respective management areas, focusing on fundamental tasks.

Minister Nguyen Manh Hung also stipulated that any document issued must be accompanied by implementation guidelines. In addition, the heads of units responsible for each sector should think about and provide concrete, easy-to-understand guidance to localities, addressing the most essential tasks.

Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung presented a notable message, which is an aspiration to eliminate all 400 thousand temporary and dilapidated houses through various mechanisms, with the coordination of the State, the people, businesses, and localities. Simultaneously, the entire sector’s resources will be directed to implement Resolution No. 42-NQ/TW on continuing to innovate and improve the quality of social policies, as well as focusing on the most stringent management, firmly addressing the situation of accumulation of debt and delayed issuance of legal documents.

Developing the cultural industry is an important message put forth by Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung. Thus, in 2024, the ministry will concentrate on providing advice to develop legal documents on the cultural industry, as this issue has only recently appeared in Party documents. According to Minister Nguyen Van Hung, establishing this system of documents is not just about management; it is also aimed at creating. In addition to the state’s resource role as a dominant force, the ministry believes in harnessing social resources. Minister Nguyen Van Hung believes that the “public investment, private administration” model can be exploited.

For the Ministry of Education and Training, Minister Nguyen Kim Son emphasized that 2024 will be the year to implement the resolutions and programs for general education in 2018, develop and implement a new salary policy, and promote online public services in the field of education and training…

For the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the message is focused on building legal frameworks, as stated by Minister Dang Quoc Khanh. Minister Dang Quoc Khanh emphasized the need to complete, submit to the Prime Minister for issuance, and implement national and sector-specific plans in the field of natural resources and environmental management to ensure consistency, uniformity, and efficiency in managing state affairs within the sector.

“Guiding the resolution of difficulties and obstacles faced by localities in the granting of permits for the exploitation of mineral resources for use as landfill materials, as well as compensation, support, and resettlement work when the state reclaims land, conversion of forest land and paddy land for construction and mineral exploitation as common building materials,” Minister Dang Quoc Khanh advised.

Also taking advantage of the Tet holiday, the leaders of many ministries, government agencies, and subordinate agencies have issued important messages and practical solutions to strive towards achieving the highest targets for growth in 2024, making the Year of the Snake 2024 truly a year of breakthroughs, providing the basis and prerequisites for successfully realizing the resolutions of the 13th Party Congress.