Collective economy key to growth in Vietnam: DPM
VIETNAM will develop the collective economy in the direction of building product value chains, increasing its contribution to domestic economic development.
Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung said this at a forum held by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Vietnam Cooperative Union on December 11 in Hanoi.
At the same time, ties among cooperatives would be promoted to form associations or unions, he said.
To develop the collective economy with a core of cooperatives, it is necessary to consider the collective economy one of the four important economic components in the s o c i a l i s t - o r i e nt e d market economy, Dung said.
According to the deputy prime minister, the collective economic sector, as well as cooperatives, continued development in almost all fields in 2010-2020, making important contributions to economic growth.
However, he said the collective economic sector and cooperatives still have many difficulties and limitations that need to be solved.
Dung said the collective economy and cooperative development had been below potential, with slower growth rates than other economic sectors and a contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) that had not reached expectations.
Mechanism and policies and their implementation by state management agencies and cooperatives were part for the problem, he said, adding that there was a lack of specific guidance for implementing some provisions of laws relating to the collective economy and cooperatives or the guidance was not feasible.
Speaking at the forum, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong said since the Law on Cooperatives 2012 was issued, a new cooperative model had initially gained success in production and business, contributing to perfecting production chains.
In recent years, amid international economic integration and increasing market competition, the global and Vietnamese economies had many uncertainties with limited budgets, but the cooperative sector had still operated stably, he said.
The development of cooperatives contributed to the development of the collective economic sector and also increased the income of each individual of those cooperatives.
Son La provincial People’s Committee vice-chairwoman Trang Thi Xuan said despite the domestic economy facing many difficulties in recent years, the cooperative sector in the province enjoyed stable production.
Last year, cooperatives producing fruits exported 20,795 tonnes of fruit to major markets including the EU, the US and Australia. Meanwhile, cooperatives producing organic agricultural products had
c re a t e d many j o b s a n d increased income for local people, she said.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Tu Anh, director of the General Economic Department under the Central Economic Committee, said cooperatives had a very important role in domestic economic development, especially amid climate change, natural disasters and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Anh said Vietnam needed policies to adapt to climate change for cooperatives in agriculture, forestry, tourism, industry and construction. It also needed to improve cooperatives’ management ability.
Also at the forum, many agricultural experts said global trade had seen dramatic changes and trade wars between major powers had been unexpected developments. In addi
tion, trade protectionism and the Covid-19 pandemic were creating negative impacts on all economies.
However, they said domestic cooperatives needed to work together and with enterprises in other sectors to improve production efficiency and income, approach modern production technology, and expand export markets.