The COVID-19 health crisis and the resulting economic downturn has thrown a spanner in the works of already tardy public spending, hindering Vietnam’s efforts to revive its post-pandemic economy and speed up slowing GDP growth.

The domestic economy has been gradually escaping from a slowdown, with growth bouncing back over the past three months thanks to the government’s efforts to curb the pandemic and remove enterprises’ obstructions,

The groups will be charge of handling outstanding projects with an aim to help solve longstanding problems at ministries and branches, and in localities.

The total public investment capital has increased sharply in the 2021-2025 period compared with 2016-2020, but the number of projects has fallen significantly.

Vietnam plans to outlay 2.87 quadrillion VND (124.5 billion USD) on public investment in the 2021-2025 period, up 120 trillion VND compared to the previous estimate.

Vietnam is to continue speeding up disbursement of public investment, with a focus on infrastructure development, in a bid to spur on economic growth and create more space for private enterprises.

Ten ministries and agencies, as well as 45 localities, are giving back the capital allocated to them as they did not spend all the money they received in 2020.

The Government has ordered the Ministry of Transport to complete two component projects of the North - South expressway (Highway NH45 - Nghi Son and Nghi Son - Dien Chau sections) by 2023.

With a strong certainty that air travel will recovery when the pandemic ends, airports are seen as long-term asset. In that case, any decision related to airport projects must be for the long-term view.

The National Centre for Socio-Economic Information and Forecasting (NCIF) has released a forecast on Vietnam’s economic performance in 2021, with GDP growth of 6.72 percent and CPI of 4.2 percent under an optimistic scenario.

Investors are pinning their hopes on different investment channels this year despite the many difficulties and risks brought about by COVID-19, analysts have said.

The 13th National Party Congress is expected to set the country’s average annual growth rate of 6.5-7 per cent from now until 2025, when Vietnam may become a higher middle-income nation. 

The rate of public investment disbursement in 2020 was the highest in the last five years, contributing to enhancing economic growth and enabling Vietnam to be one of the highest-growth economies worldwide.

The disbursement of public investment was estimated at VND398 trillion as of the end of December, meeting 82.8 per cent of the Government’s plan – the highest rate in the 2016-20 period, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Construction of several national key projects, including the North-South Expressway and Long Thanh International Airports, have started.

Vietnam will continue pumping a great deal of money into public investment with a view to reaching the country’s economic growth goal for next year.

Disbursement of public funds in the first 10 months met 68 percent of the year’s target, nearly 14 percentage points higher than the same period last year.

The government has proposed a strong 5-year increase in public investment to achieve high economic growth, with more opportunities for private investors to join.

Vietnam is making all-out efforts to boost the disbursement of public investment as it seeks to post GDP growth of 3 percent this year amid the global economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Ministry of Finance (MOF) has warned about problems with the Long Thanh International Airport project, citing capital arrangement capability.