The implementation of financial and monetary policies must assure that the country’s economic growth is stable and protected from strong volatility in the second half of 2018, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said yesterday.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the half-year meeting of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council yesterday.

Addressing the half-year meeting of the National Financial and Monetary Policy Advisory Council, PM Phúc said that the State and the Government were willing to make necessary interferences to ensure the Vietnamese economy was stable enough to achieve its targets.

The Government had not thought about making changes to any macroeconomic targets, including the full-year inflation goal, he said, adding that the council was an important advisor to the Government when it came to policy review and determination so that solutions were practical and appropriate given the world’s development.

In the past two years, Viet Nam’s economic growth has remained highly positive, Phuc said. In the first half of 2018, the country’s growth rate was 7.08 per cent – the highest in seven years.

The council and its specialists should contribute ideas and opinions about existing monetary and financial issues so that the Government could deliver appropriate actions to tackle those problems, he added.

In addition, experts of the council should work with the Government to improve Viet Nam’s finance and trade policies in the context of rising trade tensions between the world’s leading economies, Phúc said.

There was a need to control exchange and lending rates so that the economic growth was achievable. The country must also manage other issues such as inflation, macroeconomic conditions and sustainable development of the real estate and securities markets, he added.

PM Phuc asked the council to study solutions to help Viet Nam boost its economic performance, prepare itself to seize opportunities and beat difficulties resulting from the fourth industrial revolution, especially the sustainable development of each sector and industry.

The council’s experts were required to advise the Government on different views about the management of macroeconomic, financial, monetary, trade and investment conditions so that the Government will have more options in its operation, he said.

In response, some experts at the meeting said that Viet Nam needed to maximise its internal strength to improve the domestic market, stabilise lending rates, develop the securities and real estate markets in a healthy way and push the reform of legal and administrative frameworks so that the investment and business environment become clearer and companies get a boost to improve their business activities. — VNS