Vietnam’s Five-year Socio-economic Development Plan, 2006-2010

The following article gives overall objectives, main targets, major tasks and resolutions set out in Vietnam’s five-year socio-economic development plan for 2006-2010 adopted by the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in Resolution No. 56/2006/QH11 dated June 29, 2006:

I. Overall objectives and main targets

1. Overall objectives

· Economic growth shall accelerate, with increased efficiency and sustainability of development, so as to soon take the country out of the current under-development state;

· The people's material, cultural and spiritual life will be remarkably improved;

· To speed up industrialization and modernization and develop a knowledge-based economy, forming the basis for making Vietnam a fundamentally industrialized country in the direction of modernization by 2020.

· To maintain political stability, social order and safety.

· To firmly defend national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security.

· To continue strengthening and broadening foreign relations, enhancing Vietnam's position in regional and international arenas.

2. Main yearly targets for the next five years by 2010

a. Economic targets

- GDP at comparative prices shall increase by more than 2.1 folds in 2010 over 2000. The GDP growth rate is projected at 7.5 - 8% a year, with a goal to achieve over 8% a year. The average per-capita GDP at current prices shall be US$ 1,050-1,100.

- Of the GDP, the agricultural sector is seen to control 15-16%; the industrial and construction sector to account for 43-44%; and the service sector to represent 40-41%.

- Export turnover shall increase by 16% a year.

- The share of GDP contribution to the state budget shall reach 21-22%.

- The whole society's investment capital shall make up around 40% of GDP a year.

b. Social targets

- Population growth rate shall be around 1.14%.

- Agricultural labor shall account for less than 50% of the workforce.

- 8 million jobs shall be generated; urban unemployment rate shall be less than 5%.

- The rate of poor households shall drop to 10-11%.

- To complete the general secondary education; trained laborers are expected to account for 40% of the workforce.

- The rate of malnourished under-five children shall reduce to below 20%.

c. Environment targets

- The rate of forest coverage is to be 42-43%.

- The rate of population having access to fresh water in urban and rural areas shall be 95% and 75%, respectively.

- 100% of newly-built production establishments shall apply clean technologies or be equipped with pollution-reducing and waste treatment facilities; the rate of production and business establishments meeting environmental standards is to be over 50%; wastewater treatment systems will be built in 100% of cities of third- grade or more, in 50% of fourth-grade cities and all industrial parks and export processing zones; 80-90% of the solid wastes and 100% of medical wastes shall be gathered and treated to environmental standards.

II. Major tasks & solutions in the five-year socio-economic development plan, 2006-2010

1. To bring into full play all potentials and resources to accelerate the economic growth rate, creating a breakthrough in construction of infrastructure, restructuring the economy in a comprehensive manner and raising competitiveness of the economy.

To perfect the mechanism and policies on administration of development investment, to eliminate the ask-and-give mechanism, to remedy widespread investment situation, to combat loss, squander and outstanding debts, and to step up control over quality of investment projects on capital construction.

To intensify in-depth investment, making qualitative changes in agricultural production and comprehensive development of the rural economy. To restructure agriculture and the rural economy along the direction of industrialization and modernization. To raise the level of research and application of scientific and technological advances to production, preservation and processing. To develop hi-tech agricultural production regions on a large sale.

To maintain high growth rates while raising the quality of products and efficiency in industrial production; to improve the competitiveness of the industrial sector in order to maintain and expand domestic and overseas markets. To concentrate on the selective development of some potential industries and high-tech products. To step up development of the energy industry and industries of producing major capital goods, with importance being attached to the development of labor-intensive industries; to boost development of economic infrastructure for industrialization and modernization.

To create a leap in the development of the service sector. To raise the quality of traditional services. To develop new services. To develop and raise the competitiveness of potential services. To radically renew the administrative mechanism and modes of public service provision-a breakthrough to take the process of socialization of cultural and social domains to a new stage of development.

2. To take initiative in integrating into the regional and world economies more intensively and extensively. To efficiently realize Vietnam’s commitments regarding trade, investment, services and so on with foreign countries and international organizations. To prepare itself to carry out commitments upon Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). To make the best of favorable conditions, bringing into full play the advantages and limiting the negative impacts resulted from the integration process, with a view to further attracting capital, state-of-art technologies and managerial experience.

3. To create a favorable environment for development of enterprises, with the focus being made on raising the quality and efficiency of their production and business operations; to rapidly increase exports, attract capital and technology, especially high technology, in order to reduce production costs and improve competitiveness of enterprises. To accomplish the restructuring, renewal and equitization of state enterprises under the provisions of the Enterprise Law. To strongly develop without any restriction on the scale of enterprises of various economic sectors, bringing the number of enterprises operating in Vietnam to around 500,000 by 2010.

4. To further renew and perfect institutions and regard the objective requirements of the market economy in economic activities. To concentrate on perfecting the institutions on development of markets for goods, services, real estate, labor, finance and science and technology. To renew planning on socio-economic development along the direction of bringing the positive impacts of markets to the fullest.

5. To enhance the nation's financial potential. To bring into full play and efficiently use financial resources of the state and society, at home and abroad, for development investment.

To renew the mechanisms of administration of state finances and management of the state budget, ensuring the leading role of the central budget, stepping up decentralization and increasing powers and heightening the responsibility of different budget levels and budget-using units. To raise efficiency, publicity and transparency in the use and management of state budget funds, creating a marked improvement in the control of budget funds and intensifying the work of state audit in order to prevent waste, loss and corruption of state money and property.

To formulate and administer monetary policies in a flexible manner, ensuring macro-economic stability, reining in inflation and ensuring the safety of the banking system, raising the quality of credit. To mobilize capital sources, while renewing and enhancing the capability to supply capital for development investment. To adopt a flexible exchange rate policy; to renew the mode of payment in the direction of increasing non-cash payment means and increasing the convertibility of Vietnamese currency.

To improve the quality and efficiency of analysis and forecasts; to promote measures to manage and control the situation of market and price fluctuations, actively dealing with negative impacts of upheavals in world prices as well as prices of capital goods and essential consumer goods, meeting the requirements of integration while controlling inflation, and creating a stable environment for the development of production and the improvement of people's lives.

To continue wage reform. To study and uniformly apply the minimum wage level to domestic enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises. To address irrationalities in wages and incomes of cadres and civil servants in the apparatus of state bodies, political institutions and socio-political organizations and the incomes of pensioners and state policy beneficiaries.

6. Socio-economic development in regions and territories must be along the direction of bringing into full play their respective advantages and competitiveness concerning natural resources, geographical position, and human resources, linking together branches and regions. To introduce open policies to develop key economic regions into the driving force of the national economy. Focus shall be made on the development of mountainous and border regions, ethnic minority areas and other difficulty-hit regions through various mechanisms and the state’s direct support, with a view to narrowing down gaps and differences in development levels, incomes and living standards among regions and among ethnic groups.

7. To arrange cost and time effective execution of projects and major national works, for which the National Assembly has adopted investment undertakings, and approved projects and national target programs. The execution of major projects, works and programs must aim to achieve the socio-economic development targets set forth in the 2006-2010 five-year plan; to concentrate on the objectives of economic growth and restructuring, poverty reduction, job generation, education, training and vocational development; to intensify control over diseases and caring for people's health.

8. To carry on innovation for education and training in a comprehensive manner. To develop appropriate scales and promote socialization, standardization and modernization in a bid to improve the quality of education and training. To ensure the quality of innovation in general education curricula at all levels; to renew university education; priority shall be given to the development of education and vocational training and ensure a rational human resource structure, meeting the requirements of the country’s industrialization and modernization as well as labor export. To concentrate investment on priority objectives, national programs for education and job-training development; and to provide support for social policy beneficiaries, ethnic minority people, handicapped children, and people in regions with exceptional socio-economic difficulties and in mountainous, island and border regions. Focus shall be made on fostering gifted pupils and scientific talents.

To continue building the Vietnamese culture into an advanced one imbued with national identity- the objective and spiritual foundation of society. To conserve and promote the values of the nation's traditional culture.

To encourage, mobilize and create conditions for the entire society to get involved in physical education and sports activities and develop the cause of physical training and sports. To ensure conditions for stepping up physical education in schools and the armed forces; to develop various forms of mass sports, attaching importance to improving the health of the elderly, disabled and children. To continue realizing and expanding the process of professionalization of high-achievement sports.

9. To raise the capacity and renew the mechanisms of management and organization of scientific and technological research. To speed up technological renewal in various economic sectors, develop high technologies and modernize traditional technologies. To incrementally develop information technology and biotechnology into economic branches with high growth rates, meeting domestic and export demands. To harmonize socio-economic development with a rational and efficient use of natural resources, environmental protection and improvement; to concentrate on redressing environmental pollution in industrial parks, residential areas, craft villages, and large cities; to raise the effectiveness of state administration of environmental protection. The sustainable development strategy in Vietnam is to be carried out. To organize the implementation of Agenda 21 on sustainable development at all levels and in all branches.

10. To take measures to control population growth. To improve the quality of population and rationally distribute population among regions. To elaborate appropriate planning and policies for the purpose of meeting the trend of restructuring population in rural and urban areas.

To prioritize state capital and mobilize social capital for job creation. To raise the quality and efficiency of the use of labor resources. To continue restructuring labor along the direction of reducing the proportion of workers in agriculture- forestry-aquaculture while raising the percentage of industrial and construction labor, particularly labor in the services sector, in the total labor force. Focus shall be made on vocational training and job creation for peasants. To efficiently implement the program on labor export, increasing the percentage of skilled labor. To correctly and adequately collect compulsory social insurance, to well prepare and realize voluntary social insurance as well as unemployment insurance.

To diversify resources and modes, to well implement the national program on hunger elimination, poverty reduction, and job creation; to encourage people to enrich themselves lawfully. To concentrate on investment in construction of economic and social infrastructure and support for poor people to improve their own lives. To promote introduction of special policy on investment support for production development, particularly supports for land for production, and for residential use, clean water, job training and job creation for ethnic minority people, people in remote and difficulty-hit regions; to prevent a relapse into poverty; and to promote socialization of hunger elimination and poverty reduction.

To upgrade and develop the network of grassroots medical establishments, preventive medicine, general hospitals of provincial and district levels, regional medical centers, intensive-care medical establishments by promoting socialization of medical activities. To raise the capability to oversee, detect and control epidemics, particularly HIV/AIDS and newly arising epidemics. To implement the policy of free-of-charge medical examination and treatment for under-six children, free health insurance for the poor, elderly and policy beneficiaries. To reduce through medical insurance the hospital fees for above-six children of poor families. To develop and raise the quality of medical insurance, to well implement voluntary medical insurance, and incrementally proceed toward universal medical insurance for the entire population.

To well implement the policies of preferential treatment towards people with merit, families of war invalids and martyrs and policies towards the elderly, the disabled, and social policy beneficiaries. To develop the social welfare network. To prevent and proceed to repel social evils of drug addiction, prostitution, and trafficking of children and women.

11. To raise the standard, material and spiritual life of women. To provide training and fostering to women in a bid to get them involved more in social activities and in governance and administrative agencies at all levels; to create conditions for women advancement in all the domains of political, economic, cultural and social life. To prevent and fight against domestic violence. To respect and guarantee for children the exercise of their rights towards their families and society in accordance with the international Convention on Children’s Rights and the Vietnam’s Law on Protection, Care and Education of Children.

To effectively carry out the Law on Youth and the national strategy on youth development, facilitating youth to play their role as the shock force, voluntarily accomplishing their tasks. To implement policies and legislation on assurance of the rights to freedom of belief and religion. To create conditions for religious organizations to take part in social activities, making a contribution to national construction and development.

12. To enhance defense and security potentials and take the initiative in coping with all contingencies, firmly defending national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security, helping firmly maintain political stability, social order and safety.

To promote development of the defense industry, linking defense requirements with public welfare demands.

To combine strength in external relations activities for the purpose of practically serving the objectives of firmly maintaining political stability and security, developing the national economy, raising competitive capacity at home and abroad, and promptly and efficiently addressing emerging international issues.

13. To expeditiously perfect and ensure the consistency of the legal system in order to meet the requirements of building the socialist state ruled by law.

To continually renew and raise the quality of legislative work, ensuring that legal provisions be specific, clear and transparent in order to gradually reduce the promulgation of regulations detailing and guiding the implementation thereof. To organize regular and efficient examination, inspection and supervision of the promulgation of regulations detailing and guiding the implementation of laws, decrees, and resolutions, as well as the observance of law in all aspects of social life.

14. To accelerate administrative reform and promote democracy in all aspects. To review and timely eliminate administrative procedures causing troublesome for organizations and individuals and hindering national development. To consolidate the apparatus of state agencies towards streamlining and more effective and efficient operation in line with new requirements; to clearly define the functions, duties and responsibilities of each agency and unit. To firmly maintain order, discipline and conduct of official duties. To raise ethical quality, capacity, responsibility and the sense of service of the contingent of civil servants and officials, especially heads of agencies and units. To detect in a timely manner and strictly handle officials and civil servants who break the law, or are degenerate, bureaucratic, or authoritarian.

To further carry out the strategy on judicial reform, consolidating the organization and operation of investigating authorities, procuracies, courts, judgment-executing bodies, and legal support organizations and agencies, to efficiently struggle against crime of all kinds, particularly organized crime, creating a healthy environment for socio-economic development.

To rationally promote the empowerment of district-level courts combined with the organization of regional courts under the judicial reform strategy.

15. To efficiently implement the Anti-Corruption Law and the Law on Practicing Thrift and Combating Waste. To ensure publicity and transparency in decisions on finance and the state budget. To resolutely handle persons who commit acts of corruption regardless of their positions, to apply measures to resolutely recover property belonging to the state, and to limit damage in corruption cases. To promptly commend, reward and apply measures to protect denouncers and people with merit in the struggle to prevent and combat corruption. To raise the responsibility of the heads of agencies, organizations and units in preventing and handling persons who commit acts of corruption, cover up, obstruct the fight against corruption or abuse the denunciation of corruption to slander and harm others, and, cause internal disunity and difficulties for managerial officials.