Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has told relevant ministries and agencies to better control public debt and efficiently use public investment to help stabilize the macro economy.

Speaking at a monthly cabinet meeting in Hanoi last week, Dung urged better management of State budget spending, public debt and funding for State-financed projects, saying these are the major tasks this year. 

In responses to reporters’ questions on Friday afternoon, Minister and Chairman of the Government Office Nguyen Van Nen said public debt was still within safe levels approved by the National Assembly. 

Nen elaborated on the country’s public debt in reply to queries about total public and government-guaranteed debt of around US$110 billion as of late 2014 as announced by the World Bank last month. He added that this debt figure was provided by the Ministry of Finance.

Nen said the Government had told relevant agencies to better manage public debt and efficiently use public investment to ensure the country’s financial safety and help stabilize the macro economy.

At the cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister underlined a high possibility of the Government realizing or beating the socio-economic targets for 2015 given improving indicators in the first seven months of this year.

He said the targets could be achieved if relevant ministries and agencies exerted greater effort and adopt consistent solutions.

Early this year, the Government set an economic growth target of 6.2% or higher and an inflation target of no more than 5% in 2015.

The macro economy improved and inflation was under control from January to July. By July 20, credit growth had stood at 7.32%, foreign direct investment disbursements had expanded 8.8% year-on-year to US$7.4 billion and official development assistance (ODA) disbursements had risen by 10% to US$3.5 billion.

Many industries, especially manufacturing-processing, were back to high growth in the January-July period. The index of industrial production (IIP) went up by 9.9% over the year-earlier period, total sales of goods and services by 9.9%, goods transport by 5.8% and international arrivals by 5.1% (after 13 months of fall).

Besides the achievements, a slew of challenges remained as falling export prices of farm products on global markets led to lower-than-projected revenue increases or drops in key export products of Vietnam. Exports of domestic firms shrank in the period.

At the cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister urged agencies to stick to the macro-economic targets and increase disbursement of capital for important projects, and make the most of all available resources to fuel economic growth.  

Government agencies should do what they can to diversify export markets and capitalize on opportunities from bilateral and multilateral trade agreements between Vietnam and partners.

The Prime Minister wants more credit extended to prioritized sectors, the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and Vietnam dong and forex market stabilized, and interest rates reasonably set in accordance with inflation.