Sir, the 14th Party Congress has set out the requirement to establish a new growth model. How do you assess this content in the Congress documents?
- Looking back at the past development journey, Vietnam has gone from a centralized, subsidized planned economy to a multi-component commodity economy, and then gradually perfected the model of a market economy with state management in a socialist orientation. By the 14th National Congress, the Party and State had planned development strategies that were more comprehensively innovative than in previous periods.
A noteworthy point is that the XIV Congress not only stops at summarizing and evaluating the current growth model, but also points out the requirement to transform in a substantive way to meet the new challenges of the domestic and international context. The set goal is no longer broad growth, mainly based on expanding investment capital, exploiting resources or using cheap labor, but deep growth, based on productivity, quality and efficiency.
The XIV Congress emphasized the requirement to transform the growth model to a foundation based on science and technology, innovation and knowledge economy. This shows an important step forward in development thinking, when science and technology are no longer seen as a supporting factor, but become the main driving force of growth. Along with that is the requirement to improve the quality of human resources, promote digital transformation, develop a green economy, circular economy and new business models in line with the development trend of the world.
The orientations of the Congress have been concretized by a series of major strategies and policies, especially key resolutions of the Central Government. Recently, 9 Resolutions associated with 9 core areas have been issued to promote the transformation of the growth model in the spirit of the 14th Congress.
In parallel with that is the process of institutional reform, reforming the State apparatus in the direction of streamlining, improving effectiveness and efficiency; shifting from the "State management" model to the "State creating development". This is a very important foundation to create a favorable environment for innovating the growth model and perfecting the socialist-oriented market economy institution.
What barriers does Vietnam's growth model need to overcome, sir?
- For many years, Vietnam's economic growth has mainly relied on three familiar pillars: investment capital, labor and resource exploitation. However, as these factors gradually reach their threshold, the broad growth model no longer creates room for sustainable development, and even poses many risks to macroeconomic stability.
First of all, in terms of capital, although total social investment capital continuously increases, the efficiency of capital use is not commensurate. One of the core issues is the fragmentation and lack of intercommunication between resources: state capital, private capital, FDI capital, as well as new capital flows for green growth, renewable energy or digital technology. The consequence is that the situation of "where capital is needed, it is lacking, where capital is available, it is used inefficiently" still persists.
Regarding labor, the advantage of scale and low costs is gradually decreasing in the context of a rapidly aging population. More importantly, the quality of human resources has not kept up with the requirements of the new growth model. The proportion of highly skilled workers is still low; the ability to adapt to new technologies, especially in fields such as digital technology, artificial intelligence, automation, and semiconductor chips, is still limited. This makes Vietnam's labor productivity increase slowly and still far from many countries in the region and in the world, becoming a major barrier to in-depth growth.
Regarding science and technology, Resolution 57 has clearly pointed out weaknesses that have existed for a long time in both the public and private sectors. The level of investment in research and development is still low compared to development requirements and compared to international standards; the efficiency of using resources for science and technology is not high; the mechanism to encourage innovation is still not synchronized. In particular, the science and technology market is developing slowly, the linkage between research institutes, universities and businesses is still loose, making it difficult for many research results to be commercialized and put into production and business practice.
In addition, the current growth model is also affected by institutional and governance limitations. The policy system is sometimes inconsistent and overlapping, increasing compliance costs and risks for businesses. The transition to new growth drivers such as green economy, digital economy, and circular economy still faces many legal, infrastructure and coordination mechanism barriers.
So what is the core requirement to substantially innovate the growth model, sir?
- In my opinion, the core lies in improving the quality of economic platforms and economic sectors. Whether it is the state-owned economy, private sector, FDI or the informal sector, all must become organic components of the new growth model.
Economic sectors must be "absorbed" by the new growth model, supported by a suitable policy system to improve production and business management, and supply chain management. When each "cell" of the economy improves productivity, quality and efficiency, the overall economy will operate effectively and sustainably.
In addition, growth model innovation must be seen as an overall organic connection between industries and fields from agriculture, industry to services; between innovative ecosystems; between infrastructure types such as transportation, energy, digital infrastructure. It is impossible to develop fragmentedly, separately from each field.
In 2026, what are the immediate tasks to be done to be able to soon realize the goals of the 14th Congress, sir?
- 2026 is considered a pivotal time in realizing the development goals set out by the 14th Party Congress. This is not only the first year of the stage of implementing major resolutions and strategies, but also the year that decides the transformation of thinking orientations into practical actions.
First of all, it is necessary to harmonize and unify the institutional and legal system, remove barriers, overlaps, and contradictions in regulations so that correct guidelines and policies are effectively implemented. When institutions are transparent, social resources can be mobilized and allocated more effectively.
The second is to build and strengthen confidence for the market, for businesses and investors. When there is confidence, economic sectors dare to invest, dare to innovate, dare to accept risks to participate in new fields and business models. Market confidence is a key factor determining the success of the development strategy.
Finally, the implementation of the goals of the 14th Party Congress needs to be focused and key, avoiding spreading out according to movements. Currently, the number of resolutions, strategies and action programs is very large, if key breakthroughs are not clearly identified, it will easily lead to a situation of resource dispersion and low efficiency. Therefore, in 2026, it is necessary to focus resources on a number of areas that can create strong spillover effects such as science and technology, innovation, development of high-quality human resources, strategic infrastructure and new economic sectors.
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