Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh and his delegation on September 18 worked with leading scholars at Harvard University in Boston (Massachusetts State) as part of their trip to the US from September 15-19.

Ninh had a round-table discussion with renowned Harvard University scholars- David Dapice, David King and Dr. Vu Xuan Thanh along with representatives from various agencies.

The Deputy PM and Harvard scholars exchanged views on the current political situation in the US, gave assessment of Vietnam’s economic growth, compared economic achievements and differences between the economies having the same level of development such as India, Indonesia and China and withdrew lessons for the Vietnamese economy.

Regarding the impact of the current US political context on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiation process, Professor David King said there is little possibility for the US Congress to promptly pass the law empowering President Barack Obama to sign the TPP.

According to the professor, to accelerate the TPP negotiations, Vietnam and other participating nations need to pay heed to the American public and enhance cooperation with groups having shared interests in the US aiming to speed up the early finalization of the agreement.

The scholars also gave assessments and recommendations to Deputy PM Ninh on Vietnam’s growth strategy in the coming time in which they suggested Vietnam should change the growth model based from focusing on investment and bank credits to one based on renovations. They also stressed the urgent need to reform economic institutions with a focus on restructuring state-owned enterprises (SoEs) reform, public investment policy and the banking sector.

US experts applauded Vietnam’s achievements in economic development, global economic integration in recent years while expecting Vietnam will continue to maintain positive growth in the years to come.

VOV/VNN