2021 will be an important year for Vietnam because it will create a foundation for the country’s development between 2021 and 2025. Vietnam aims to prioritize resources to accelerate growth and fulfill tasks set out for this period. Vietnam will focus on strengthening public investment as an emergency measure to recover from COVID-19’s economic effects. Economist Vo Tri Thanh says the government needs to step up emergency economic recovery measures while guarding against external impacts, financial shocks, natural disasters, and epidemics.

"We need to uphold the spirit of the war time, making quick, resolute, coordinated responses and mobilizing all forces. These are all the things we have done in our fight against the virus. We need to improve the effectiveness of our aid packages and incentives and initiate new policies to help business and the public overcome difficulties. The aid packages need to be sufficient and connected with structural reforms and global development trends like digital transformation, changing lifestyle and consumer habits, and climate change adaptation." said Thanh.

Doctor Nguyen Dinh Cung, former Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said management mindset and frameworks need breakthroughs. Cung said economic recovery requires stronger economic stimulus measures.

"Economic stimulus needs new monetary policies, particularly new fiscal policies, a bigger budget deficit, and restructured public debt. We need to identify areas for economic stimulus and increase public investment. It’s necessary to focus on current large public investment projects and pay more attention to HCM City and its adjacent areas as well as the Mekong River Delta. We also need to increase investment in Hai Phong city to create a logistics hub there and make it more competitive in order to mobilize more foreign investment," said Cung.

Economist Luong Van Khoi said public investment is a bright spot in economic recovery. In addition to increasing public investment disbursement, Khoi suggested the government accept a budget deficit to enable investment for long-term growth. Khoi said such investment can be called unregrettable investment or extraordinary economic stimulus that creates a foundation for long-term, sustainable development. He said more attention should be paid to national target programs, particularly in remote mountain areas, to upgrade infrastructure and strengthen social security.

"Unregrettable investment is investment regardless of profitability and financial returns that brings about great benefits to national socio-economic development. For example, the Mekong River Delta is affected by climate change and we need more investment to mitigate its impacts. We need big investment and it’s an unregrettable investment," said Khoi.

Economist Nguyen Minh Phong said that in both the short and long term, Vietnam needs to be consistent about investing in human resources and digital transformation,"In the near future, we need to strengthen economic restructuring and focus on e-commerce and digital transformation in business to adapt to the new situation. It’s important to increase investment in platform-connection business models."

Vietnam will continue to monitor the markets for its strongest export items in order to take maximum advantage of new-generation free trade agreements. Vietnam will also pay more attention to the domestic market. All these measures have underpinned Vietnam’s successful response to the COVID-19 pandemic while maintaining growth in a time of fierce global competition.