It is no coincidence that in recent directives, the requirement for thrift and anti-wastefulness is emphasized as an important solution to create room for growth.
Recently, Prime Minister Le Minh Hung set a requirement to save at least 10% of regular expenditures in 2026, equivalent to about 170,000 - 180,000 billion VND to allocate more resources for priority tasks while saving energy, saving electricity, saving gasoline and oil with specific quantitative indicators to contribute to growth.
The Head of Government emphasized that all levels, ministries, branches, and localities must be thrifty, and the more difficult the context, the more they must be thrifty when shopping, organizing conferences, seminars, travel...
Saving is no longer a campaign, but has become an order.
However, the problem is not in the figure of 170,000 - 180,000 billion VND, the meaning of saving lies in a large-scale resource restructuring.
In traditional thinking, thrift is often understood as tightening spending and limiting investment. But in the context of modern economy, thrift in the true sense is to optimize resources and use every penny of capital effectively.
Broadly, the concept of "saving" is not just about money. One of the urgent requirements currently raised in Conclusion 18 is: "Promoting administrative procedure reform; standardizing and digitizing the entire process of resolving procedures in a digital environment, interconnecting and sharing data between agencies; minimizing compliance time and costs for people and businesses".
This is a form of "social savings": Saving time, saving opportunity costs, saving resources of the entire economy. And its value is even much greater than budget savings.
The ancient Vietnamese have a saying "Trading boats and rafts is not as good as being frugal" to remind children and grandchildren. However, in economic development, to ensure growth, it is necessary to implement both "trading boats and rafts", which is to increase investment and practice thrift.
The most important thing is efficiency, as General Secretary and President To Lam concluded at the National Conference to study, study, thoroughly grasp and implement the Resolution of the 2nd Conference of the 14th Party Central Committee: "Each mechanism, policy, each infrastructure project, each capital flow must aim to activate the capacity and aspiration for development in the people, turn potential opportunities into reality of growth and turn trust into a driving force for long-term development for the country and the economy".
Only in this way can savings truly become a soft power for national growth.
