VietNamNet Bridge – The government has reported that the national economy is recovering from the recession. Meanwhile, economists have reminded that the national budget is facing the shortfall and the unemployment rate has been increasing.

The government’s latest report showed that the GDP in the third quarter of the year grew by 5.54 percent, higher than the second quarter (5 percent) and the first quarter (4.76 percent). As such, the GDP growth rate over the last nine months has reached 5.14 percent, higher than the growth rate of the same period of the last year (5.1 percent).

The report also pointed out that inflation has been restrained with the consumer price index (CPI) increasing by 4.63 percent so far this year, the four-year lowest increase.

Vietnam’s export turnover was still big in the first nine months of the year, despite the low demand in the global market. The exports brought $96.5 billion in turnover, up by 15.7 percent over the same period of 2012. The trade deficit was $124 million, or 0.1 percent of the total export turnover.

Vietnam remains a very attractive destination for foreign investors, who registered $15 billion worth of investment in Vietnam in the first nine months of the year.

Nevertheless, economists prove to be not as optimistic as the government.

The General Department of Taxation has reported that it has collected VND436.336 trillion in tax so far this year, or just 67.7 percent of the year’s estimates.

Prior to that, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung once warned that the state budget would see the loss of VND60 trillion in tax collection.

The state budget deficit is so big that the Government plans to ask for the permission to raise the ceiling budget overspending to 5.3 percent. The solution, as said by the Prime Minister at the September government regular meeting, has got the nod from the Communist Party’s Politburo.

The General Statistics Office has released a report, showing that the unemployment rate by June 2013 had been 2.28 percent (3.85 percent in cities and 1.57 percent in rural areas). However, no economist believes the figure, saying that this is just a “dream.”

At the autumn economic forum held recently, Head of the Vietnam Economics Institute Tran Dinh Thien, after just several simple calculations, pointed out that the number of people losing their jobs in the last 2.5 years had reached several millions.

According to Thien, about 135,000 businesses had to shut down from 2011 to June 2013. Meanwhile, the 450,000 operational businesses have to cut down their capacity by 30 percent. These enterprises have made 5.5 million people become jobless.

A report by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry showed that 43,000 businesses stopped operation in the first nine months of the year, while 66 percent of businesses reported loss in the second quarter.

Tran Du Lich, a well-known economist, affirmed that the 5 percent GDP growth rate cannot create 1.6 million jobs and curb the unemployment rate in urban areas at 4 percent.

The unemployment rate is a very important index which can show the health of the national economy. However, the economists can only point out the illogicality when comparing the statistics, while they cannot find the real figures.

K.Chi