Vietnam News Agency (VNA) has selected what it considers to be the 10 most outstanding economic events of Vietnam in 2017.

Cabinet members have been resolute in building a facilitating government this year .

According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), in the fourth quarter of 2017, 44.8 per cent of firms reported better business performance in Q4 than Q3.

VietNamNet Bridge - The unexpected jump in the GDP growth rate in the third quarter of the year remains controversial.

The top concern of foreign investors seeking to expand their business in Vietnam is the strong rise of the middle class.

VietNamNet Bridge - With good GDP growth in the first three quarters of the year, economists have expressed concern about the driving force for economic growth in the years to come and the next stages of development.

How much do internal resources contribute to the country’s GDP? Economists have raised the question after GSO announced a record-high GDP growth rate of 7.46 percent in the third quarter of the year.

 VietNamNet Bridge - The economic performance in the last months of the year is expected to be healthy thanks to improvement in three major sectors – agriculture, industry & construction, and services. 

VietNamNet Bridge - PetroVietnam has been asked to exploit more oil to obtain the targeted growth rate of 6.7 per cent assigned by the government.

VietNamNet Bridge - The expansion of the ‘clearing pavement campaign’ in Hanoi and HCMC means fewer vending stalls in the cities. 

The World Bank has estimated that by 2030, nearly one-fifth of Vietnamese will enter old age and around 40 percent of the population aged 70-74 will still have to work, mostly in the unofficial labor market.

Economic growth based on natural resource exploitation and a cheap labor force has reached the critical point. Economists say Vietnam has no choice but to follow a sustainable development strategy.

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam has been seeing slight GDP growth in recent years. The growth rate was 6.2 percent in 2016 and is forecast to be 6.3 percent this year. 

The severe weather conditions in the first months of 2016 with drought and saline intrusion dealt a strong blow on Vietnam’s agriculture, leading to minus growth rate of the sector in the first half of the year. 

Labor-intensive industries such as mining and agriculture are no longer expanding, according to Nguyen Duc Thanh, Director of the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR).

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam economy will encounter more difficulties in 2017 than in 2016 amid global geopolitical changes and financial uncertainties, experts say.

VietNamNet Bridge - Though skeptical about the 6.7 percent GDP growth rate target, economists still believe Vietnam will be among Asia's fastest growing economies.

VietNamNet Bridge - While Vietnam has seen a ‘whirlwind’ of goods from ASEAN countries and China, Vietnamese enterprises still have not found effective solutions to conquer the vast ASEAN market of 1.9 billion consumers.

VietNamNet Bridge - Economists say that 2017 is expected to be an auspicious year for Vietnam’s economy, with few signs of uncertainties.   

VietNamNet Bridge - National Assembly’s deputies described the government’s 2017 socio-economic development plan and the five-year economic restructuring project as ‘too ambitious’ and ‘out of reach’.