HANOI, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam should make a strategic shift towards a more productivity and innovation-based economy, while making the most of the ongoing demographic dividend to sustain high quality growth over the next decade, the World Bank in Vietnam said here on Wednesday.
This is among the main recommendations from the joint report between the World Bank and the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences on the new economic model to help Vietnam achieve high-quality growth for the 2021-2030 period.
The report, which is being prepared with support from the Australian government, proposes Vietnam's new economic model in 2021-2030 to center around three breakthroughs: innovation and entrepreneurship, human capital, and modern institutions.
The report finds that the labor-intensive, export-led growth model Vietnam pursued during the 2011-2020 period has increasingly become obsolete against the context of Industrial Revolution 4.0, maturing global value chains, premature deindustrialization, and rising role of services.
"We are living in the era of disruptive technologies that presents both challenges as well as opportunities. I would like to call it Doi Moi (renewal) 4.0," Ousmane Dione, country director for the World Bank in Vietnam, said at a workshop "Vietnam Economic Growth Model for 2021-2030, with a Vision to 2045" chaired by Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue in Hanoi on Wednesday.
"To mitigate these risks and seize the opportunities Vietnam needs to accelerate reforms that boost productivity and innovation as key drivers of growth in the coming decade, including steps to remove bottlenecks for private sector investment, enhance public sector institutions and invest in 21st century skills of the workforce," Dione said.
To avoid the middle-income traps, experts contend that Vietnam will have to maintain a growth rate in the range of 7-7.5 percent for the 2021-30 period, higher than the average rate of 6.3 percent of the last 10 years.
Vietnam achieved gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7.08 percent in 2018, the highest rate over the past 10 years, up from the annualized target of 6.5-6.7 percent, according to its General Statistics Office.
Vietnam's top legislature has set a target of attaining GDP growth of 6.6-6.8 percent in 2019.
