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Sep 22, 2015 / 10:11

ASEAN Economic Community and impacts on Hanoi’s socio-economic development

Hanoi, September 22, Hanoi Institute of Socio-economic Development and Economic & Urban Newspaper together hold a city-level scientific workshop named "ASEAN Economic Community and impacts on Hanoi’s socio-economic development".

The workshop aims to evaluate positive impacts and limitations of joining ASEAN economic community towards Hanoi’s economy, culture and society, from which offer recommendations and solutions for the City, the departments, the business community in promulgating policies, seizing the opportunity, investing and corporating, etc.
The workshop also contributes to the summary of 5-year term (the XV Hanoi Party); Consulting policy, contributing to the draft of Political Report of XVI Congress of the Hanoi Party; Improving the business climate, investment environment, promoting international integration.
Attending and chairing the workshop included: Vice Chairman of City People's Committee Nguyen Ngoc Tuan; Director of Hanoi Institute of Socio-economic Development Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duong; Chief Editor of Economic & Urban Newspaper Nguyen Minh Duc.

Delegates to the conference are representatives of departments, districts and towns; the research institutes at the level of ministries, provinces and cities; experts, scientists, universities, representatives of business associations and enterprises in the province, etc.
As one of the three pillars of the ASEAN Community (AC), the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) holds an important role and is also major political ambition of Asean to improve competitiveness, to strengthen the attraction of foreign investment, as well as dealing with the rise of the process of globalization. The AEC formation in late 2015 is expected to support Vietnam’s GDP growth by 14.5% and job opportunity by 10.5%, etc. However, besides the opportunities, joining the AEC also poses significant challenges for ASEAN countries, especially with developing countries such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Director of Hanoi Institute of Socio-economic Development Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duong give speech at workshop
Director of Hanoi Institute of Socio-economic Development Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duong
gives speech at workshop.
In recent years, actively promoting the role as the country's No.2 economic center, despite facing many difficulties due to the negative impacts of the financial crisis and global economic downturn, the Capital’s economy still continued developing. Total products in the areas with an average increase of 5 years from 2011 to 2015 increased by 9.23%, 1.58 times more than the average rate of the whole country. The scale of total locality product (GRDP) in 2015 at current prices reached about $27.6 billion, per capita of about $ 3,660, 1.8 times more than that in 2010. The economic structure of the City continues to shift towards a positive association with the knowledge economy (information technology, automation, biotechnology, new materials technology, etc.
Speaking at the seminar, Vice Chairman Nguyen Ngoc Tuan emphasized that the formation of the AEC is a turning point marking the ​​integration in a comprehensive manner of Southeast Asia’s economies, towards a model community of economy - security - society. As the Capital city, a major economic center, in the past 5 years, the Capital’s economy has been continuing to thrive. The economic structure continues to shift towards the positive. Inflation is under control, consumer price index dropped sharply from 17.1% in 2011 down to less than 6% in 2015. The services sector continues to have a high growth rate, value added is expected to increase by 9.97% in the average of 5 years; exports increase by 8.1%; imports increase by 3.7%. The high quality service sectors have higher level of growth than that of the whole industry. However, as the Capital, the national center of politics and administration, major center of culture, education - training, science - technology, economy and international trade of the country, Hanoi must certainly face the opportunities and challenges, advantages and difficulties in socio-economic development to assert leadership, pioneering, contributing to Vietnam's economy to achieve sustainable development goals, make good use of the advantages of integration to the ASEAN Economic Community.
Therefore, city-level workshop of "ASEAN Economic Community and impacts on Hanoi’s socio-economic development" is a scientific forum that is so meaningful and practically important in the context that Hanoi together with the country to promote industrialization - modernization, proactively and actively integrates into the world and the region. The City’s general orientation of the city in upcoming time determined as the followings: Continuing to develop the Capital’s economy towards sustainable and fast trend, associated with regional and international integration. Economic restructuring is implemented quickly towards service - industry - agriculture; there are many products with technological content, value-added and high competitiveness on the domestic market and in the ASEAN region. Expanding foreign relations of the Capital with other cities in the ASEAN region, focusing on socio-economic and cultural cooperation, education and training, science and technology, improving the status of the Capital, contributing to actively participate the AEC.

Discussion at the workshop focused on the contents: AEC 2015, opportunities, challenges and solutions for business – Dr. Nguyen Minh Phong; Hanoi and the issue of economic integration to ASEAN - Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thuong Lang; Improving the export competitiveness of enterprises in Hanoi in the participatory process of ASEAN economic community - Prof. Dr. Huu Hoa Lan; Vietnam joined the ASEAN economic community and affect on development of real estate market in Hanoi - Prof. Dr. Vu Thi Minh. Besides pointing out the opportunity to form the AEC community as: Expanding market with 600 million people; the opportunity for members to access a broader market, except for the partner of ASEAN, promoting institutional reform, improving the investment environment, business... All the speeches also recommend and propose specific policies aimed at improving the competitiveness of Vietnam's economy and for businesses. In which, focusing on the solution of economic institutional reforms to suit market mechanisms when fully integrated into the region; Improving the quality of human resource training; Pressuring to improve processes and procedures for business towards more simple and convenient; Strengthening regional links; etc.
The speeches at the conference somewhat assessed the impacts of the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community on the commercial sectors, import and export, service and tourism, investment and urban development, etc.; Proposed solutions to help improve the business environment, enhance the competitiveness of Vietnam’s economy in general and Hanoi’s economy in particular.