6
investment accounted for 75.9% of projected
budget whereas governmental bonds accounted
for 23.5% of projected budget (2016 achieved 77%
and 45.3% respectively).
State budget deficits in 2017 are regulated in
accordance with the budget projection approved
by the Parliament (accounting for 3.48% of GDP
worth 174.3 thousand billion VND). Based on state
revenue and cuts of expenditures on unnecessary
items as well as declines of expenses in case
of slower reimbursement and allocation than
required, central and provincial state budget is
basically balanced.
Export quotas increased significantly
Commercial activities in 2017 showed significant
growth in both export and import. Especially,
after 3 quarters of trade deficit, quarter IV 2017
witnessed export surplus of 3.17 billion USD, the
highest point in the last years.
National exports were estimated to be 213.77
billion USD as of December 2017, which was 21.1%
higher than that in the period prior. In particular,
exports mainly from foreign invested enterprises
accounted for 72.6%of total national exports, worth
155.24 billion USD which was 23% higher than that
in the period prior. Exports from domestic sectors
also saw an impressive increase of 16.2%.
Import quotas, worth 211.1 billion USD, were
20.8% higher than that in the same period in 2016.
Currently, China is our biggest importer of 58.5
billion USD, followed by Korea whose import
is 46.8 billion USD. This indicates that FDI from
Korea is becoming bigger and bigger because of
the fact that Korean FDI enterprises mainly import
production materials from their mother country.
The transformation of the surplus importer from
China to Korea, a higher technological country,
would bring an opportunity for Vietnam to
absorb high tech advances in the processing and
application of imported products.
Monetary and financial markets,
real estate markets remained stable
Monetary policies were being regulated strictly
and flexibly in 2017. Foreign currency deposits kept
rising and reached 51.5 billion USD (equivalent to
the value of imports in more than 2.7 months) in
the last month of 2017, bringing more policy space
the strict control of prices, except for the only
rise in essential services such as education and
health care. In particular, there was an increase
in health care service prices in many cities and
provinces for patients without health insurance
certificates, which made a rise of 27.79% in health
care service prices in comparison with those
in 2016. Also, there was a repeatedly seasonal
increase of 7.29% in education prices in August
and September 2017. Continuous increases in
prices of transportation commodities fueled
by rises in petrol prices brought only a slight
increase of 6.04% in prices of transportation
commodities in December 2017 in comparison
with those in the same period last year.
Stage budget deficit declined
Beside highlights in inflation and economic
growth, over the past years, there have remained
somemajorweaknessesinVietnameconomy,which
would create negative impacts on macroeconomic
stability. One of the major weaknesses resulted
from the fact that there have been State budget
deficits in the last years. However, in 2017 Ministry
of Finance collected more state revenue than
projected. The details are as follows:
State revenue is estimated to be 1,283.2 thousand
billion VND as of December 31st 2017, which is
5.9% worth 71 thousand billion VND more than
projected, 43.7 thousand billion VND more than
reported to the Parliament, accounts for 25.6% of
GDP whose 21% comes from taxes and fees.
Regular expenditures from state budget as of
December 31st 2017 are basically reimbursed as
projected, meeting sufficiently requirements from
state agencies. Expenditures for development
Newlyestablished (left)
Postponed (left)
Jobscreated (right)
12/2015
03/2016
06/2016
09/2016
12/2016
03/2017
06/2017
09/2017
12/2017
0
6
12
18
0
60
120
180
FIGURE 2: BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
(THOUSAND BUSINESSES, THOUSAND PEOPLE)
Source: General Statistic Office (2015, 2016, 2017)
