The
highest inflation rate in Asia acted as a blowtorch as Vietnam suffered very
hostile macroeconomic conditions in 2011.
VIR’s Nguyen Hanh talks with Victoria Kwakwa,
World Bank country director for Vietnam, to see if the country can hope for
some winds of change in 2012.
Inflation
pressures are slightly reducing, reflected in the country’s month-on-month
consumer price index (CPI) staying below 1 per cent during the past five
months. When can the currently tight monetary policy be loosened?
I think moving from stabilisation to
stimulating growth is really a balancing act. It’s very good that Vietnam’s
inflation is beginning to come down. But, the year-on-year inflation for 2011
is up to more than 18 per cent. My sense is that growth has been squeezed a
bit, but not by that much.
Growth is not as high as it was three years
ago, but 5 plus or almost 6 per cent is decent growth.
I do take the point that enterprises complain
about access to credit and liquidity.
But there’s, I think, an issue of allocating
efficiency - how you get the liquidity and the resources to the enterprises
that really generate jobs. That’s really a challenge that the system has. So
try to make sure the financial intermediary system works well to allocate
capital and credit.
I think when inflation goes down to levels
that are almost close to single-digits, then you can look at what’s happening
on the growth side. My sense is that the focus still needs to be on
stabilisation. It’s hard to tell the precise time to ease the monetary policy.
Vietnam needs to continue to monitor the inflation trends.
Some
analysts now forecast Vietnam’s macroeconomic conditions will continue to be
very hostile at least until the end of the second half of 2012. Do you agree?
I don’t see any reason why the inflation
situation shouldn’t get better in 2012. If the government stays on track
continuing to address the inflation challenge and really works on economic
restructuring to address some of the efficiency issues in the economy, I think
the country will have pretty good results. The World Bank predicted Vietnam’s
inflation would be about 10.3 per cent in 2012.
Is
the ugly macroeconomic picture, particularly the highest inflation level in
Asia, undermining Vietnam’s internationally-recognised achievements in poverty
reduction as the poor are said to be the ones who suffer the most in such
situations?
It’s generally accepted that Vietnam has done
very well both on the economic and social fronts. The current economic
situation is a challenge. But growth of 5 per cent plus is still quite high and
overall we haven’t seen numbers to suggest that poverty reduction gains have
diminished. But it’s still the case that people’s welfare levels are being
adversely affected.
How
should Vietnam handle social equality and protecting the poor in the context of
very high inflation and a lack of confidence in the local currency?
Vietnam has done very well in getting the
majority of Vietnamese people to benefit from growth.
I think part of the response has to be really
strengthening the social protection system for the most vulnerable, the poorest
of the society and people who are vulnerable to fall back into poverty.
Vietnam has a lot of programmes that try to
help poor people, but they are very fragmented. Many of such programmes cross
several ministries and local level procedures are very complicated. Thus, at
minimum there has to be some consolidation of the current system and programmes
and then an effort to provide instruments that allow the government to very
quickly respond to help the poor when a crisis happens.
For example, when electricity tariffs were
increased, the government stepped in, giving some financial help to poor
households. Clearly that’s not adequate, but may be that’s all the government
could do because it doesn’t have a framework and a system of social protection
and instruments it can quickly bring to the table.
Restructuring
state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is one of the three mandates that the government
has taken on board as recently instructed by the Party. The other two are
restructuring public investment and restructuring the financial and banking
sector. But, the government embarked on reforming SOEs two decades ago. What
should it do to reinvigorate the SOE restructuring process?
My understanding is various plans are being
prepared to really concretise the action the government will take, so we wait
to see those plans. We’re ready to support the government financially as well
as in terms of policy advice and analytical work to implement the restructuring
plans.
This is very important time to move forward
with some actions when the new administration is in the place, when you have a
new 10-year socio-economic strategy and a five-year socio-economic plan.
You’re right, a lot was said about SOEs reform
and investment issues, but concrete actions are needed to really move forward.
There have been many equitisations, but only for small enterprises. The big
enterprises didn’t get touched and they got even bigger with the creation of
economic groups.
But it’s not just equitisation, it’s really
about corporate governance, transparency, accountability, giving SOEs clear
targets and performance monitoring.
On the public investment side, the
decentralisation of investment decisions at provincial level has led to a
situation where there is overinvesting in certain areas. Take industrial parks,
for example. There’s an oversupply of industrial parks. Too many have been
built and several of them are empty or not full.
Decisions about investment made on the basis
of sound economic and financial merits should be a big part of public
investment restructuring, because capital would then be allocated more
efficiently than it is now.
In the financial sector in particular, Vietnam
must try to address the issues of capital adequacy, non-performing loans and
regulatory oversight, and the issue of supporting the banks to be able to
adequately assess risk and manage risk.
My sense is the government knows the solutions
and this is a responsible government that wants to do the right things and
continue to move Vietnam forward. I think bringing this determination into
concrete action is what is needed to go forward.
VIR
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