The conference was attended by Assoc.Prof.PhD. Pham Bao Son - VNU Vice President; Assoc.Prof.PhD. Nguyen Truc Le – Rector of the UEB; Assoc.Prof.PhD. Nguyen Anh Thu - Vice Rector of the UEB and Director of VEPR; Prof.PhD. Andreas Stoffers – National Director of FNF in Viet Nam; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Thailand in the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, representatives of the government agencies, policy-making agencies, national and oversea research institutes, international sponsors, institutions as well as enterprises, banks and mass media.

 

Assoc.Prof.PhD. Pham Bao Son – VNU Vice President delivered the welcome remarks

In his speech, Assoc.Prof.PhD. Pham Bao Son – VNU Vice President highly appreciate the effort of VEPR over the years through launching Viet Nam Annual Economic Report. It is a prestigious scientific product, a great contribution to the State's macroeconomic policy-making process. The vice president believed that this year's report will continue to be an important scientific basis for formulating policies for the Vietnamese economy to overcome difficulties caused by the Covid-19 epidemic.

 

Assoc.Prof.PhD. Nguyen Truc Le – Rector of the UEB delivered the opening speech

Assoc.Prof.PhD. Nguyen Truc Le affirmed that with the aim of becoming a leading applied research center in the country, the Annual Economic Report is an important scientific product of the UEB in his speech. With this year's report, they hoped to have an open discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of Vietnam's tariffs and proposed some specific policies for the State. On behalf of the University staff, he would like to appreciate the contribution of the authors and FNF to the Report today.

 Prof.PhD. Andreas Stoffers – National Director of the FNF in Viet Nam delivered his speech

In his speech Prof.PhD. Andreas Stoffers stated that the Annual Economic Report was a qualified scientific product, many economic management policies have been formed based on the Report and helped the Vietnamese economy make great strides. They were delighted with this successful cooperation and would continue to cooperate so that we could have more quality products in the upcoming years.

 

PhD. Nguyen Duc Thanh – Chief Adviser of VEPR gave his presentation in the conference

After delegates’ presentation, PhD. Nguyen Duc Thanh - Chief Adviser of VEPR, on behalf of the authors, presented an overview of Vietnam's economy and prospects for 2020. Accordingly, he affirmed that in the context of the world economy facing many instabilities, Vietnam's economy still had positive signs in 2019, Vietnam's economic growth rate in 2019 reached 7.2%, exceeding the target set by the National Assembly.

In general, the economy witnessed many achievements, continued to fulfill the socio-economic targets set by the National Assembly. However, these successes were based on a lack of macroeconomic foundation and had potential risks. The economic structure was still unsustainable. The private sector was below potential and had many barriers from the domestic institutional and business environment. Fiscal policy did not create positive changes in the budget revenue structure, while public debt was high, budget deficits did not change much, and state assets were increasingly narrowed. This means that Vietnam is lacking fiscal buffer to cope with external shocks.

 

Assoc.Prof.PhD. Pham The Anh - VEPR Chief Economist presented at the seminar

After the presentation of PhD. Nguyen Duc Thanh, Assoc.Prof.PhD. Pham The Anh - VEPR Chief Economist, on behalf of the authors, presented the characteristics of Vietnam's budget revenue in the context of integration in order to highlight the changing trends of the tax collection under the pressure of integration and international competition. In terms of tax collection structure, the proportion of indirect taxes in total tax revenue had increased sharply to more than 60%, while direct taxes had decreased less than 40% (despite the significant increase in absolute value). This has reduced the progressiveness of Vietnam's tax system.

Assoc.Prof.PhD. Pham The Anh also continued to present the tax competition pressure in ASEAN: The case of corporate income tax; Tax incentive in Vietnam in terms of corporate income tax; Tax evasion and avoidance in Vietnam in terms of corporate income tax; Vietnam's economic prospects and policy implications. The authors expected that, the average CPI of the year would range from 3.5 to 4%.

 

Assoc.Prof.PhD. Nguyen Anh Thu moderated the discussion

After the presentation of the two experts, the discussion of the scientists was conducted by Assoc.Prof. PhD. Nguyen Anh Thu.

The members of reviewers were PhD. Can Van Luc - Chief Economist of BIDV, Director of BIDV Training and Research Institute; Mr. Nguyen Van Phung - Director of Department of Large Enterprise Tax Administration, General Department of Taxation, Ministry of Finance; Assoc.Prof.PhD. Vu Sy Cuong – Representative of Academy of Finance.

After that, many experts and business representatives put questions to the speakers; however, due to the limited time, the author would receive questions via email and would response to them as soon as possible.

This is the 12th Vietnam Annual Economic Report of VEPR, –VNU-UEB. The report is of special interest to state management agencies and economic policy-making agencies because of its scientific value. In the future, the UEB will continue to invest to have high quality applied science products, have a strong influence on society, create a breakthrough development for Vietnam's economy.