Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the conference

At an online national conference on Thursday, he said the State budget must be spent economically and effectively stressing the need to cut unnecessary expenses and ensure resources for important tasks, especially COVID-19 prevention and control.

The Prime Minister praised the financial sector for its achievements over the past year.

As the economy in Vietnam and the world continues to be unstable this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Prime Minister asked the financial sector to closely follow the Party guidelines and resolutions of the NA and the government, and work with other ministries, sectors and localities in order to ensure the macro-economic targets, control inflation, and successfully implement the socio-economic recovery and development program.

He asked for harmonious combination of fiscal and monetary policies: “It’s important to harmoniously combine the fiscal and monetary policies to ensure mutual support between them. Policies on these two regards are crucial to the national economic management. We need to increase collection, reduce spending, especially unnecessary spending, and practice austerity. We need to review all spending to control overspending and manage public debt.”

The Government leader also asked the sector to push ahead with the disbursement of public investments to boost economic recovery and growth.