Hanoi - At a weekend meeting with economic experts,
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung agreed the country needed
to shore up macroeconomic problems, but postponed recommendations on
cutting back wasteful government investment, an economist who was
present said Monday.
The roundtable discussion with 19 prominent economic experts and
ministries, which was closed to the press, was held on Saturday in
Hanoi.
'Some of the economic experts at the meeting complained the
government had not done well in ensuring the quality of economic
growth, social development, and education,' said the economist, who
spoke with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on condition of anonymity.
He said some recommended the government do more to ensure public
investment goes to productive projects rather than inefficient ones,
but that Dung said such moves would be difficult at this time.
Dung's statement after the meeting emphasized 'global economic
turmoil' as the source of Vietnam's economic problems this year. He
focused on government efforts to hold the inflation rate in 2009 to
under 10 percent, but did not address the issue of wasteful spending
by state-owned enterprises.
Nguyen Van Khach, a government official in charge of organizing
the weekend roundtable, said the purpose was 'to assess the real
situation of the Vietnamese economy and its prospects in the
remaining months of this year and into 2009.'
Those present at the meeting reportedly included current and
former chiefs of Vietnam's Chamber of Commerce and Industry and
several top-level government economic research groups.
Past Vietnamese premiers consulted regularly with a board of
independent economists known as the Prime Minister's Research Group,
but it was disbanded in July, 2006, shortly after Dung came into
office.
Dung emphasized improvements in Vietnam's economy over the past
eight months due to the government's inflation-fighting measures, but
acknowledged the situation was still volatile. The monthly inflation
rate dropped from a high of 3.9 per cent in May to 1.6 per cent in
August.
Experts and investors have criticized the government for failing
to make its policy-making process more clear.
'No one can forecast what the inflation rate in Vietnam will be
unless the government's macroeconomic policy becomes transparent,'
said Nguyen Quang A, director of the Institute for Stable Development
in Hanoi.
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