Growth rates between 2010-2018

It also came as a result of the consensus of the National Assembly, the support of the whole political system and the great endeavors of all localities, the Government stressed while addressing the national conference in Ha Noi on Friday.

Despite unexpected and huge difficulties at some point of time, we have gone through a hard-but –meaningful journey, said PM Phuc, adding that this is the first time in history Viet Nam’s farm exports surpassed US40 billion.

The economy expanded 7.08%, the highest rate since 2008 while trade surplus increased to unprecedented volume of more than US$7 billion.

More importantly, high GDP growth was achieved inversely proportional to credit growth that rose only 14% compared to 17%-18% last year. In addition, mineral industry reduced by nearly 4% whereas manufacturing and processing increased by 12%.

Especially, export value of domestic sector grew by 17% compared to that of foreign-invested sector amid trade affairs between China and the United States.

Viet Nam is one of the fastest-growing and stable economies in Asia  with remarkable improvements of growth quality as evidenced by better productivity, according to PM Phuc.

He said it has never been seen before that the private sector has grown quickly in the past two years, with more than 130,000 private enterprises established in 2018 alone.

Regarding anti-corruption campaign, the Government leader said many big corruption cases have been seriously investigated and brought to trials. Concluding the 9^th plenum of the 12^th Party Central Committee on December 26, Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong released a figure that more than 60 cadres under direct management of the Party Central Committee have been disciplined since 2016 in a bid to restore public trust in the Party’s leadership.

The meeting today is not just for reviewing what have been done in 2018. It is time to look back the whole past journey in order to evaluate both fruits and weaknesses in an objective, comprehensive and systematical manner.

He urged inferior levels to seek more strong solutions and rally all resources for development, quickly overcome sluggishness and weaknesses in policy making and enforcement process.

He also called for greater efforts in removing obstacles hindering the development of private economy, in training labor force in the digital era, in coping with natural disasters and in the fight against corruption.

Regarding development orientation for 2019, PM Phuc said the Government will pursue both FAST and QUALITY growth through promoting the existing growth impetuses while seeking new driving forces.

He vowed to further focus on addressing weaknesses in policy making and governance and on re-evaluating the real potentials of all economic sectors, including wood processing domain./.