The PM said the country’s “economic structure is less effective and labor productivity remains low.”

Urban unemployment is forecast to rise to 4.66 percent this year from 4.65 percent in 2008, while “human resource development, administrative reform and budget spending still have shortcomings,” he said.

Dung said 2009 “has been a year of difficulties and challenges” with exports and tourism down sharply, industrial output, while recovering, still low, and a noticeable hoarding of dollars.

He said the balance of payments deficit was estimated at US$1.9 billion.

Despite great challenges, he said, Vietnam had weathered the economic slowdown, development investment was on the rise, and production was increasing, thereby providing more jobs.

Dung also announced a 2010 economic growth target of 6.5 percent, GDP of VND1,931 trillion ($106 billion) and per capita output of $1,200.

Administrative reform

Dung said Vietnam would reduce its recently regulated administrative procedures by at least 30 percent to complete the pertinent 2001-2010 plan.

He said Vietnam would establish a national standard kit of administrative procedures, closely monitor their implementation at all levels of government, and boost e-government.

Dung said Vietnam would also improve the investment and business environment, promote the growth of production and services, continue a flexible monetary policy to stabilize the macro-economy and prevent inflation, ensure social security and environmental protection, strengthen anticorruption, and increase national defense and security.

The PM said the government would do its utmost to foster economic growth next year to exceed the economy’s performance in 2008, improve the quality of growth, promote macroeconomic stability, keep prices down, and ensure social welfare.

Natural resources

“It’s time to focus on processing, so the government will ban the export of unprocessed natural resources,” Communist Party Secretary General Nong Duc Manh told the National Assembly in reference to the draft law on natural resource taxes set for NA discussion.

“We have mostly sold our natural resources, and attracted criticism for this. It’s a reality that poor countries often sell their resources to the rich nations, which process them with their own technologies,” he said.

Manh said the terms “green industries” and “green development” had come into use after the dangerous desertification that had occured in many countries.

“The draft law should adopt these concepts rather than just modify shortcomings. I have to be frank that we have not managed our irreplaceable natural resources that well. In other words, we have relaxed management or are unable to manage,” he said.

Phung Quoc Hien, chairman of the NA’s Finance and Budget Committee, said the government had collected little tax from the increasing exploitation of natural resources in recent years.

He said the draft law should contain specific tax rates for different types of natural resources, with the highest rates for resources that could not be regenerated.

Reported by Ngan Anh