The Saigon Marketing newspaper on April 18 hosted a business conference
to evaluate the impacts of global economic problems on the domestic
economy, and work out business and administration solutions suitable for
Vietnam’s conditions.

According to the Vietnam
business insight survey (VibS), there will still be many challenges
ahead for the national economy in 2013, and 58.3 percent of enterprises
plan to maintain the current scale of their operation, while 10.4
percent expect to scale down. Only 30.5 percent say they will expand
their business.

However, the number of businesses
forecast to close down stands at around only one percent, which is a
fairly positive signal compared to last year.

The
inflation will continue the dropping trend, giving more room for policy
manoeuvre, but the growth rate is slowing down, Director of the Vietnam
Centre for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) Nguyen Duc Thanh said,
adding that bad debt and other potential problems in foreign currency
and gold are main threats for Vietnam’s economy.

Therefore, Vietnam should make real changes, giving priority to
strategic partnerships in regional and international economic
connections, and carrying out domestic economic reforms in line with
international integration roadmap, he said.

Dr. Tran
Dinh Thien, Director of Vietnam Institute of Economics, underlined
issues needed to be dealt with immediately to boost economic growth,
including clearing bad debts and stock and reforming the salary system
in the state sector.

Also at the conference, experts
and business representatives discussed issues relating to policy,
managing experience and business practice.-VNA