Resolution No. 98/2015/QH13 dated November 10, 2015 of the National Assembly on the 2016 Socio-economic development plan

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Resolution No.98/2015/QH13 dated November 10, 2015 of the National Assembly on the 2016 Socio-economic development plan

Pursuant to the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam;

Considering reports of the Government, the Supreme People s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuracy, agencies of the National Assembly, concerned agencies, and opinions of National Assembly deputies;

RESOLVES:

I. RESULTS OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2015 SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN

World and regional complicated developments in 2015 have negatively affected the socio-economic situation of the country. Under the leadership of the Party and great efforts of the entire political system, the business community and the people, the country have recorded positive socio-economic changes, basically fulfilling its overall objectives and expectedly achieving and surpassing 13 out of 14 planned targets. The strategic breakthroughs and economic restructuring associated with renewal of the economic growth model have been accelerated with initial results. Positive changes have been seen in the fields of culture, society, education, health, institutional reform, administrative reform, judicial reform, business environment and competitiveness. Natural resources management, environmental protection and response to climate change have seen developments. Security and social order and safety have been basically ensured, defense has been further strengthened, increasingly consolidating the all-people national defense and people’s security posture, especially in strategic areas. External and international integration activities have achieved many important results, elevating the country’s position in the international arena.

Nevertheless, the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy remain low. The domestic sector, particularly agriculture and farm produce export, still encounter major difficulties and challenges. The number of closed and dissolved enterprises is large, the service sector has registered lower growth than the previous period. The state budget balance still faces difficulties with an unreasonable structure and high spending deficit. Public debts have soared, causing high debt payment pressure. Mobilized non-state investment resources remain limited, trade deficit grows again. A new economic growth model has not been clearly shaped, restructuring of a number of sectors and industries remains slow, failing to achieve the targets set by the National Assembly’s Resolution. The credit quality was not high; the handling of non-performing loans and restructuring of poorly performing commercial banks remain problematic. Markets of various types still develop slowly and operate unsmoothly. The economy’s absorptive capacity and proactiveness and readiness for deeper integration still face problems. The building of a new countryside still encounters many difficulties, especially in terms of resources. The problem of advancing capital for construction of some works without having sources for payment remains unsolved in a number of communes and districts. The rich-poor gap is still wide. The poverty reduction results are not sustainable; the rate of poor households among ethnic minority groups remains high. The labor market supply-demand remains imbalanced, employment for university graduates still meets numerous difficulties, the human resource quality is low, the result of application of science and technology is still limited, and labor productivity increases slowly. The effectiveness of natural resources management and use is not high, environmental pollution and degradation occurs in many places. Resources for natural disaster prevention and control and response to climate change are not ensured. Administrative reform, prevention and control of corruption and waste in a number of fields fail to meet requirements, administrative discipline was not strict. Cultural development and realization of social progress and equality and public health care and protection still have limitations which are slowly addressed. There remain numerous weaknesses in the assurance of food hygiene and safety. Complicated developments have been reported in security and social order and safety in some places. Many negative signs of ethics and lifestyle have caused a pressing public concern. The protection of sovereignty and maintenance of national security, especially at sea and on islands, have faced new challenges.

II. OBJECTIVES AND MAJOR TARGETS IN 2016

1. General objectives

To maintain the macro-economic stability, to strive for an economic growth higher than 2015, to attach importance to improving the growth quality, to ensure sustainable development. To step up the implementation of the strategic breakthroughs, to restructure the economy in association with renewal of the growth model, to raise productivity, quality, efficiency and competitiveness. To remove difficulties for enterprises, to boost production and business. To develop culture, to ensure social progress and equality and social security, to increase social welfare and improve the people’s living conditions. To effectively manage and use natural resources, to proactively prevent and control natural disasters, to respond to climate change and protect the environment. To accelerate administrative reform, to enhance social and administrative discipline; to raise the effect and effectiveness of state management; to make significant changes in corruption prevention and control, thrift practice and waste control. To strengthen national defense and security, to persistently struggle to firmly protect national sovereignty; to maintain political security and social order and safety. To raise the effectiveness of external and international integration activities.

2. Major targets

The gross domestic product (GDP) will grow at around 6.7%.

The total export value will increase around 10%.

The trade deficit rate will be under 5%.

The consumer price index will be under 5%.

The total development investment capital of the entire society will reach around 31% of the GDP.

The energy consumption rate per GDP unit will decrease by 1.5% from 2015.

The rate of poor households by the Multidimensional Poverty Index will decrease by 1.3- 1.5%, and particularly for poor districts, by 4%.

The urban unemployment rate will be under 4%.

The rate of trained labor will reach 53%, including 21 % of laborers trained for 3 months or more and having a training diploma or certificate.

The number of patient beds per 10,000 persons will reach 24.5.

The health insurance coverage will reach 76%.

The rate of operating industrial parks and export-processing zones having a centralized wastewater treatment system up to environmental standards will reach 85%.

The forest coverage will reach 41%.

III. MAJOR TASKS AND SOLUTIONS

The National Assembly basically agrees with the tasks and solutions submitted by the Government, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuracy and recommended by National Assembly agencies in their verification reports and specialized oversight reports, and concurrently requests focus on the following major tasks and solutions:

1. To flexibly and effectively administer monetary policy, fiscal policy and other policies in order to achieve and overachieve the targets adopted by the National Assembly. To appropriately administer the interest rate, exchange rate and credit growth, to effectively handle non-performing loans. To closely control public debts, government debts and foreign debts of the country within the limit under the National Assembly’s Resolution, to raise the use efficiency, and increase inspection and supervision, of theborrowing,use and repayment of loans, particularly new loans and government-guaranteed loans, to further reschedule loans toward increasing medium- and long-term loans with appropriate interest rates. To further restructure state budget revenues and expenditures, ensuring reasonable rates of investment expenditures, current expenditures and debt payment expenditures toward higher investment expenditures; to basically handle outstanding capital construction debts, not to incur new debts, to resolutely handle and collect tax arrears, to strictly manage the advance of funds and payment from other sources, to strictly save current expenditures, to uphold financial discipline and ensure that all state budget revenues and expenditures must be estimated in advance. To effectively mobilize, attract and use resources for development investment, to concentrate on attracting foreign-invested hi-tech projects.

To develop a legal framework for the centralized procurement of state assets from 2016, applicable to assets procured in large quantity and high value and used in many agencies, organizations and units. To continue modernizing the management of public assets and upgrading the national database on state assets, ensuring incrementally complete information on public assets in the national database.

2. To ensure major balances of the economy. Toconcentrateon removing difficulties for, and boosting development of, the domestic sector, to effectively implement solutions to support farmers and enterprises in production, sale and market expansion. To increasingly prevent and control smuggling, trade frauds, fake goods, unhygienic and unsafe food, especially along key roads and in key localities; to intensively fight and strictly handle violations. To boost exports, to properly manage imports, to adopt solutions to remarkably tackle the imbalance in trade relations with some markets with which Vietnam has high trade deficit.

3. To continue implementing the 2013 Constitution, to improve the legal system, to end the delayed promulgation of implementing documents, tostrictlyprohibit the promulgation of documents contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, laws, ordinances, decrees of the Government and decisions of the Prime Minister. To synchronously implement the laws concerning investment and business and continue effectively implementing solutions for improving the business environment, to strive for an average ranking among the top ASEAN countries in the Business Climate Index. To review and improve laws for the fulfillment of international commitment and free trade agreements.

4. To synchronously develop and raise the effectiveness of markets of various types, ensuring fair and transparent competition. To implement the market mechanism, to study and effect the separation of public services from state management; to boost socialization of the provision of public services, to renew the organization and operation of public non-business units. To accelerate, and improve the arrangement and restructuring of state enterprises, particularly agricultural and forest companies. To continue selling state capital in enterprises not requiring state holding under the market mechanism and use part of these revenues for development investment, to speed up, complete and ensure quality of, national key programs, projects and works and urgent transport, health and education works. To improve policies to raise the effectiveness of infrastructure management, exploitation and maintenance. To enhance management decentralization and socialization of resources in association with increased supervision to ensure effective use of investment capital for infrastructure development.

To submit to the National Assembly a plan on economic restructuring for 2016-2020. To review, promulgate and supplement policies strong enough to boost the implementation of the plan on agricultural restructuring to create marked changes in production index, competitiveness, market stabilization and joint production model, to further increase incomes of farmers. To review and supplement policies to develop support industries, hi-tech industries, hi-tech agriculture, small- and medium-sized enterprises and business start-ups. To modernize and quickly develop high-added value services. To further review and improve the legal framework for restructuring and handling of cross ownership and non-performing loans. To create conditions for credit institutions and the Vietnam Asset Management Company (VAMC) to operate safely and effectively according to international practices and standards. To increasingly supervise the ownership transformation and management of poorly performing credit institutions; to regularly inspect and supervise and promptly, strictly and lawfully handle violations; to ensure safety of commercial banks.

5. To further improve and organize the effective implementation of mechanisms and policies on state support for persons with meritorious services and poor people by the new poverty standards, to ensure social security, to increase social welfare and better address the labor market supply-demand. To further promote the renewal of education and training in order to raise human resource quality in association with generation of employment. To combine the program on building a new countryside and sustainable poverty reduction with support policies for ethnic minority people and mountainous and disadvantaged areas; to support and create conditions to encourage enterprises to invest in agriculture, rural areas and areas with socio-economic difficulties and exceptional socio-economic difficulties. To implement support solutions and policies for expansion of social and health insurance coverage; to adopt appropriate solutions for household-based health insurance; to concentrate on reducing hospital overload, raising the quality of medical examination and treatment and preventive health. To increasingly control occupational safety and health. To create remarkable changes in the application of science and technology and occupational skills to raise productivity in each industry. To step up the movement of workforce into high-added value industries right from 2016. To continue with the admission of drug addicts without stable places of residence into compulsory detoxification establishments under the National Assembly’s Resolution No. 77/2014/QH13 of November 10, 2014, until relevant revised laws take effect.

6. To increasingly manage natural resources and minerals, to protect the environment; to conduct open and transparent bidding for new exploitation of natural resources and minerals, to increase examination, inspection and supervision by state management agencies and related sectors and strictly handle violations; to develop and implement effectively and with focuses and priorities the target programs on prevention and control of natural disasters and response to climate change, to increase investment in infrastructure in important areas, to prevent human and property losses. To concentrate on the treatment of environmental pollution, particularly in rural areas, craft villages, local industrial clusters and river basins. To persist with the protection of national interests in the management and sustainable use of the Mekong river water source. To speed up and early complete the establishment of a uniform database and a uniform and modem system of land information; to continue conducting basic surveys on natural resources, especially marine ones.

7. To raise the effectiveness and effect of the public administration and administrative reform, to strictly implement the Political Bureau’s Resolution No. 39 on payroll streamlining and restructuring of cadres, civil servants and public employees. To increase examination, inspection and supervision of the law enforcement capacity and attitude, to evaluate the true qualities of cadres and civil servants, to resolutely dismiss those who obstruct, seek profit or trouble enterprises and the people. To raise the effectiveness of corruption prevention and control, thrift practice and waste control, and reception of citizens and settlement of their complaints and denunciations.

8. To raise the effectiveness of external activities; to further enter into intensive, practical and effective partnership relations; to step up external activities of the State and the people. To continue with the effective implementation of the Party’s and the State’s guidelines on international integration; to implement the Standing Committee of the National Assembly’s Resolution No. 1052/NQ-UBTVQH13 on orientations, tasks and solutions for accelerated international economic integration. To carry out procedures according to regulations for submission to the National Assembly for ratification and develop specific action programs to implement new agreements and the plan for implementation of 17 objectives and 169 targets in the United Nations document “Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ”

9. To forecast and thoroughly grasp domestic and overseas developments, to closely combine national defense and security and external work in order to proactively deal with all possible circumstances, to firmly protect national independence and sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, to maintain the peaceful environment for national development. To effectively implement policies for the implementation of Vietnam’s Sea Strategy to 2020, particularly the implementation of the Government’s Decrees No. 67/2014/ND-CP and No. 89/2015/ND-CP on marine development policies to create vigorous changes in economic development associated with maintenance of national defense and security in sea and island areas. To effectively address pressing social issues; to maintain security and social order and safety, to increase examination and strictly handle violations of traffic law; to adopt specific and effective measures to reduce traffic accidents and jams; to actively and effectively prevent and fight fires. To ensure absolute security for the Party’s 12^thNational Congress and the elections of National Assembly deputies and People’s Council deputies of all levels. To enhance state management of information and communication. To proactively provide information on the socio-economic situation, guidelines of the Party and policies and laws of the State and issues of public concern to create high social consensus.

IV. IMPLEMENTATION ORGANIZATION

The Government, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuracy and the State Audit Office of Vietnam shall, according to their functions, organize the effective implementation of the Resolution of the National Assembly.

The Standing Committee, the Ethnic Council and Committees of the National Assembly, delegations of National Assembly deputies and National Assembly deputies shall oversee the implementation of this Resolution.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, its member organizations, and lawfully established social organizations shall supervise and mobilize the people to implement the Resolution of the National Assembly.

The National Assembly calls upon compatriots and combatants throughout the country and overseas Vietnamese to uphold the spirit of patriotic emulation and unity, draw on internal resources, take full advantage of opportunities and overcome difficulties and challenges for the implementation of the 2016 socio-economic development plan with highest results.

This Resolution was adopted on November 10, 2015, by the XIII^thNational Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at its 10^thsession.-

For the National Assembly

Nguyen Sinh Hung