Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam will build a ♍policy on comprehensive competition by 2017, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) Nguyen Dinh Cung said at a workshop in Hanoi on August 3.

According to the expert, national economic growth witnessed a deceleration over the last decade, with average levels of 7.8 percent in the 1990-2007 period, 6.7 percent between 2007-2012 and about 5.8 percent from 2012 to now. The country’s macroeconomy is likely to fall into unsutainability as the slowdown in economic growth continues, Cung said. He stressed the need to devise measures, including increasing labour productivity and improving the efficiency of resources, for sustainable economic growth. Vietnam has experienced a 30-year economic reform and will continue the process, with a focus on forming a competition policy. The Government has assigned the CIEM to map out and submit a plan for building a comprehensive competition policy in 2017, Cung revealed, describing this as a new reform scenario. Lanchlan Rosalie, an expert from Australia’s Productivity Commission, commented that it is necessary to remove import quota control and facilitate the private sectors’ involvement in the fields that are molopolised by State-owned enterprises such as electricity and telecommunications. The favouritism in terms of tax and management policies towards State-owned businesses should be taken away, while their right to exclusively decide prices must be limited, she said. Fair competition between State-owned and private firms must be promoted, while the State budget should be used preferentially for all businesses, she added. According to a recent survey by the World Economic Forum, Vietnam ranks 71st in competition in the domestic market and 77 th in the efficiency of monopoly prevention among 140 competitive economies worldwide.-VNA