Bridge - PM Nguyen Tan Dung just introduces an article titled "Rapid and sustainable development - The kernel in
Bridge - PM Nguyen Tan Dung just introduces an article titled "Rapid and sustainable development - The kernel in
The conception sustainable development was coined in early 1980s and was popularized in 1987, generally meaning the development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." This process must ensure a close, proper and harmonious combination of three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and socio-political sustainability
Over the past two decades, internationally, sustainable development has received greater and greater attention, becoming a demand for global development. A number of summits have focused their discussions on this topic and introduced many important related documents.
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Right at its 3rd Congress (1960) and 4th Congress (1976), the Communist Party of Vietnam set the target of “fast, strong and firm advance to socialism.”
The 7th Party Congress ratified the Socio-economic Development Strategy 1991–2000, underlining that “Economic growth must be attached to social progress and equality, cultural development and environment protection.”
The 8th Party Congress drew the lesson “Economic growth must be attached to social progress and equality, preservation and development of national identities, and environment protection.”
The socio-economic development strategy 2001-2010, approved at the 9th Party Congress, reconfirmed “Rapid, effective and sustainable development and economic growth must go together with social progress and equality, and environment protection.”
The 10th Party Congress continued to draw the lesson on rapid and sustainable development, the content of which was enriched with the demand for comprehensive human development and democracy, apart from socio-economic development and environment.
The overall goal of the five-year plan 2006-2010 was “To strive for economic growth of rapid tempo, high quality and higher sustainability, attached to human development.”
Obviously, the viewpoint of rapid and sustainable development was early recognized and perfected by our Party and State as a consistent guideline for the leadership and management over the national development for decades. Our State also made strong commitments to sustainable development.
For the past ten years, while realizing the socio-economic development strategy 2001-2010, our country has gained significant achievements.
With the annual economic growth rate of nearly 7.3% on average,
The actual average per capita income has increased by 2.3 times for the past ten years. Many considerable results have been seen in poverty reduction and highly appreciated by the international community. The income gap between urban and rural areas was slashed down from 2.3 times in 1999 to 2 times in 2008. Children receive good care and protection; the rate of under-5-year-old child malnutrition has decreased from 33.8% to below 18%. The life expectancy has risen from 67 up to 72. The universalization of junior secondary education was completed nationwide. The Human Development Index (HDI) continuously increases, standing at 0.733 in 2008 and belonging to the medium group. People’s cultural enjoyment and access to information are bettered. Social welfare and security systems are expanded.
Apart from important results in engaging in the entire society into the development of social domains, the State spending for these fields is continuously raised; health insurance coverage reaches about 62% of the population in 2010 from 13.4% in 2000. Gender equality sees strong advancement, the percentage of female National Assembly deputies and political leaders becomes higher and higher. In 2008,
Environment protection receives due attention and improvements have been gained in some fields. Democracy is further expanded in the society, bringing about higher social openness and consensus. National defense and security are guaranteed. Socio-economic stability is secured. Many positive changes have been seen throughout the country;
Apart from the above achievements, there remain many weaknesses discovered in the process of development. Actually, the achievements are incommensurate with potentials. Quality, productivity, efficiency and competitiveness of the national economy remain quite low. Economic growth still depends on extensive factors rather than intensive ones.
The mobilization and use of resources are still ineffective; waste and loss remain quite popular; efficiency of investment is low. The consumption of materials and energies is enormous. The exploitation and use of natural resources are not really sound and economized. Macro-economic indicators are not really solid; budget overspending, trade deficit and inflation are high. Ecology and environment are seriously polluted in many localities.
There remain many burning socio-cultural issues; social evils tend to mushroom; traffic congestion and accidents are alarming; corruption is not pushed back; education and training quality, especially tertiary and vocational training, is poor and slowly improved; many hospitals become overloaded, and quality of health services is low.
These weaknesses are partly attributed to some objective reasons. However, subjective ones are also very thorny. Especially, the viewpoint of rapid and sustainable development is not yet profoundly recognized and consistently presented in policies, plans and regulatory instruments.
The management work is inclined to growth rate rather than the quality of growth and stability of development; no breakthrough is made in settling burning social issues. Socio-economic development schemes, plans and projects and environment protection policies are not soundly combined and mingled together.
The mechanisms of management and supervision over sustainable development are not established in a clear and effective way. People’s mastership, especially direct democracy, is not brought into full play.
Based on the realities, the draft socio-economic development strategy 2011-2020 stresses the lesson “To pay special attention to quality, efficiency and sustainability of development… to harmonize the pace and quality of growth” and defines “Rapid development must be attached to sustainable development which is the core requirement in the Strategy,” with the main content of “sustainable economic development, guaranteeing macro-economic stability and economic security.
To speed up economic restructuring and the shift of growth models, considering quality, productivity, efficiency and competitiveness as top priorities, focusing on in-depth development, developing intellectual economy. Economic growth must be harmoniously combined with social progress and equality; people’s life quality must be continuously improved. Socio-economic development must go together with environment protection and improvement.
Our country possesses a lot of conditions for rapid development and rapid development now becomes an urgent demand; sustainable development is the foundation for rapid development which, in its turn, will generate resources for sustainable development. Rapid and sustainable development must always be emphasized in socio-economic development project, plans and policies.
It is necessary to pay special attention to socio-political stability, national defense and security to firmly protect independence, sovereignty, unity, and integral territory so as to attain fast and sustainable development.”
To realize the stance on rapid and sustainable development, it is necessary to enforce orientations enshrined in the draft Strategy comprehensively, focusing on the following tasks:
Social progress and equality are an important aspect of sustainable development
First, through solutions and aggregate strength, we are determined to secure the national independence, sovereignty, and integral territory, guarantee political security and social order, initiatively and proactively integrate into the global community, create a peaceful atmosphere and favorable conditions for the development of the country. This is the prerequisite for rapid and sustainable development and it is also our country’s advantage.
Second, we must ensure macro-economic stability and key economic indicators; maintain food and energy safety, safe and effective operations of financial institutions.
Our generation has undergone food and energy crises, and most recently, the global financial crisis and economic downturn in 2007-2009 and the current public debt crisis in some countries. These tragedies are consequences of unsustainable development, causing instability globally, badly affecting growth in almost all countries and so leading to the economic shrinkage, rising unemployment, and widespread conflicts on global scale.
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International and domestic lessons during the past years show that controlling food- energy and financial security, curbing inflation, and securing macro-economic stability and major indexes are not only premises for fast growth but also the content of sustainable growth. They become the most important task of economic management in any country.
Third, resources should be mobilized and used effectively to assure a high growth rate and at the same time raise the quality of growth.
Securing a high and stable growth rate and improving the quality of growth are the decisive factors for rapid and sustainable development. Only by achieving a high growth rate, can the country develop quickly to narrow its gap from other countries, to generate resources for social and human development and advancement of disadvantaged areas, to bring localities closer in terms of development, to expand social welfare and security systems, to exercise social progress and equality.
Thanks to abundant human resource, socio-political stability, and geo-economic advantages,
To gain high growth, at average rate of 7-8%/year, all administrative and institutional obstacles must be cleared off, production forces liberated and developed in parallel with the science and technology advancement. The private sector’s development must be facilitated as it has the highest growth rate and create jobs in largest number.
On the other hand, it is necessary to renovate, restructure and improve State-owned enterprises (SOEs) so that they become the key tool in the enforcement of policies on market organization and shaping. Ownership must be diversified transparently while bettering corporate administration.
More importantly, SOEs must compete equally with other economic sectors in the market mechanism. Only by this way, the performance of SOEs can be upgraded and their development cannot snatch resources need for the development of the private sector - a key driving force for growth.
Raising the efficiency of public investment is an important element to ensure the quality of growth. In the next ten years, we need to focus more resources on developing an integrated and modern socio-economic infrastructure in order to give wings to fast and sustainable economic growth.
Supervision mechanism should be perfected and supervision over investment will be intensified. Strict measures will be taken to fight against corruption, prodigality, and loss in public investment.
The urgent requirement of the next strategic period is to restructure the economy in all three aspects:
(1) restructuring production and service industries associated to economic regions, and developing auxiliary industries. The current growth model, mainly depending on investment increase and low-quality human resource, must be shifted to the combination of both wide and deep growth models on the basis of application of scientific and technological advances, highly-qualified human resource, and modern management skills. In the next ten years, particularly the early stage of the strategic period, we still cannot completely renounce the wide-growth model. The reason is that deep-growth model needs modern technologies and highly-qualified human resource. This is the process of capital accumulation and human resource development within each and every business and the economy as a whole. Moreover, sustainable development has a close relation with job generation and full employment of labor force. In fact, unemployment rate still remains high, particularly in rural areas. However, urgent and drastic actions must be taken to create premises for deep growth right in the first years of the strategic period, first and foremost focusing on scientific and technological fields that can develop fast in line with our country’s conditions. This is the basic way to raise the quality of growth;
(2) restructuring businesses, nurturing a pool of domestic enterprises of high competitiveness, efficiency and strong trademarks; and
(3) adjusting market strategy by paying attention to the home-ground while diversifying and expanding foreign markets. The effective implementation of the above solutions will not only pull up the quality of growth and independence and self-reliance of the national economy, mitigate negative impacts of external shocks, and ensure the country’s sustainable development but also participate in global production and value chains - a trend in the globalized economy and international integration.
Apart from perfecting the market mechanism and enhancing administrative reforms, we need to promote the State’s role in directing the development, particularly in the early stage of intensified industrialization, by designing proper policies, structures and orientations for regional development.
Fourth, cultural and social sectors must be promoted in line with economic development, people’s spiritual and material life continuously improved, and social equality and progress exercised in each and every step and policy of development.
Culture is the society’s spiritual background which constitutes stable and long-lasting values of a country as well as forms a nation’s distinct identities. Culture creates a great social resource and deeply penetrate in the development process. Each development stage of any country always bears cultural imprints.
On the cultural basis, people not only can settle human-to-human issues, know how to behave with the nature during their daily life, and also know how to conduct in respect for future generations during the development process. From this angle, culture is not only the obvious result but also an ingredient of rapid and sustainable development. Cultural development must be promoted side by side with economic development.
We need to focus on building a healthy lifestyle and cultural environment. All cultural aspects should be developed comprehensively to promote the national fine values and absorb the world’s cultural quintessence so as to make culture the real spiritual foundation of the society and an impetus for development.
Social process and equality is a very important component of sustainable development. This is also a criterion presenting the nature of our regime. Rising inequality and wealth gap will create social conflicts in many countries around the world, degrading growth. So, our Party advocates to exercising social progress and equality in each and every step and policy of development.
We will focus more on poverty reduction, diversifying resources and measures to gain firm poverty reduction. We encourage people to pursue legal enrichment, at the same time mitigating wealth gap, mainly through policies regulating incomes, developing social welfare and security.
To continue perfecting salary policies and distribution mechanisms in enterprises in order to ensure equal interests, creating the impetus for socio-economic development.
To concentrate on education and training development, especially tertiary and vocational training, to have a labor force of high quality and proper structure, so as to accelerate the economic restructuring and the shift of growth models. To develop the cause of healthcare and improve quality of people’s healthcare services.
To direct in a drastic and consistent manner while mobilizing aggregate strength of the entire political system in order to gain obvious and solid changes in the fight against corruption, social evils and traffic accidents.
Economic development must be closely combined with environment protection and improvement
Fifth, to bring into play people’s mastership, execute democracy, especially direct democracy, and build a society of openness and consensus.
Democracy is a factor of sustainable development, as clearly stated by our Party at its 10th Congress in order to perfect and enrich the content of sustainable development. This comes from a vital point: Man is the target and also the subject of development. Human resource is a long-term competitive advantage and a decisive factor for the development of a country. By executing democracy, we will bring into play creativity of each and every individual, contributing to the country’s rapid and sustainable development. The higher democracy is, the greater social consensus becomes, and the more the aggregate strength of the whole-nation solidarity is solidified.
To promote democracy and make it a resource for development, it is necessary to secure two conditions: (1) offering chances for people to study, building up a study-based society for higher intellectual standards of people; and (2) ensuring people’s mastership through institutions which guarantee democracy in all fields of the social life and expand direct democracy. Democracy must be associated to discipline and rule.
It is possible to say that, law-ruled state, market economy with social welfare and security, and socialist democracy are three main pillars of
Sixth, economic growth must be closely attached to environment protection and improvement.
Environment protection and improvement is an important aspect of sustainable development. Polluted environment, exhaustion of resources, deforestation, land erosion, desertization, climate change, sea level rise and others are narrowing the habitat of human being, not only putting negative effects on the current life but also threatening the development of future generations.
For our country, environmental pollution and risks imposed by global climate change and sea level rise are great challenges. Hence, we pursue economic development while protecting and improving the environment; actively cope with the threat of sea level rise; and use material- and energy-saving technologies, develop green economy. These solutions will most seriously affect sustainable development. They must be included in all socio-economic development plans at national, sectoral and local scales.
To achieve fast and sustainable socio-economic development, we must create a revolutionary breakthrough in awareness and vigorous renovation in ways of thinking, then insert them into all policies, schemes, plans, projects and programs of action; seriously implement them at all levels with consensus and participation of the whole political system, business circle, and people throughout the nation.
We firmly believe that, under the Party’s right leadership, with the strength of the whole-nation solidarity, the State’s effective management, and great efforts made by people and the army, our country will surely enter a new era of rapid and sustainable development.
PM Nguyen Tan Dung
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