Vietnam Achieves 8.18% Growth in First Half, Focuses on Economic Stability and Infrastructure

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM Government News Distinguished Leaders of the Party, the State, the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, the Government, and Central Party Commissions, Ministries, and Sectors, Leaders of provinces and centrally-run cities joining via video teleconference, Representatives of domestic and foreign business associations and enterprises, and delegates Today, I am highly pleased to attend the national virtual conference between the Government and localities to review the achievements and limitations of the first six months of the year, and to deploy tasks and solutions for the remaining six months and the period ahead. On behalf of the leadership of the Party and the State, I extend my warmest greetings and best wishes to all comrades. Comrades, The year 2026 marks the inaugural year for implementing the Resolution of the 14th National Party Congress and serves as the launchpad for the country's new phase of development. This requires the entire political system to act with the utmost drastic urgency to generate distinctive breakthroughs in national development, while enhancing the resilience of the economy and elevating the actual living standards of our people. We deployed our tasks for the first half of the year against a backdrop of a global economy fraught with difficulties, alongside rising geopolitical, energy, and trade risks. These factors have directly impacted highly open economies like Viet Nam. Conflicts in the Middle East and U.S. tariff policies have driven up oil prices, freight rates, and production costs, exerting immense inflationary pressure. The outlook for global trade remains challenging and highly uncertain, while global investment flows are shifting according to new criteria. Nevertheless, the achievements recorded in the first six months of the year are highly commendable. This is the fruit of the joint efforts of the entire political system, the business community, and people nationwide. I particularly acknowledge the efforts of the Prime Minister, the Government Leadership, and the Ministers of the 16th tenure. Despite having assumed office for less than three months, they have introduced innovative perspectives in leadership, guidance, and governance, employing creative, scientific, decisive, and timely approaches that have yielded practical results. I would like to summarize six prominent achievements: First, the macroeconomy remained fundamentally stable, and inflation was kept under control amid rising global inflation and substantial pressure, with the average consumer price index (CPI) for the first six months estimated to rise by 4.5 percent. Economic growth maintained its positive momentum. The manufacturing, processing, construction, services, tourism, and export sectors all witnessed positive shifts. Second-quarter GDP growth was estimated to increase by 8.39 percent, bringing the six-month growth rate to 8.18 percent. Nine localities—accounting for approximately 18.6 percent of the country's GDP—recorded double-digit growth, namely Ha Tinh, Ninh Binh, Hai Phong, Bac Ninh, Hung Yen, Phu Tho, Quang Ninh, Thai Nguyen, and Tay Ninh. State budget revenue in the first half of the year reached approximately 62 percent of the estimate, representing a 17.2 percent year-on-year increase, even after implementing tax exemptions and reductions totaling VND89 trillion. Total import-export turnover surged by 27.1 percent, exceeding US$550 billion. Foreign direct investment (FDI) remained a bright spot, and the number of newly established and returning enterprises outpaced those exiting the market, reflecting the confidence of businesses and investors in the country's development prospects. Second, breakthroughs in infrastructure development. Strategic infrastructure projects were launched concurrently. Housing policies introduced new, well-aligned orientations, including the development of rental housing, affordable housing, and social welfare housing. Long-standing, backlogged cases and projects were resolutely addressed; specifically, a comprehensive review and classification were conducted to propose jurisdictions and handling options to 3,438 out of 4,606 troubled projects. Third, institutional refinement, administrative reform, and the removal of bottlenecks were driven with greater resolve. Efforts to reduce compliance time and costs, resolve project bottlenecks, and optimize the decentralization mechanism alongside the operation of the two-tier local government system have become increasingly seamless and effective. These efforts have progressively unlocked development resources, yielding an estimated 53 percent reduction in compliance time and a 55 percent reduction in compliance costs. Fourth, science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation made continuous strides, particularly in the development of data infrastructure, digital infrastructure, strategic technologies, and digital economic sectors. The National Data Center has officially commenced operations. Project 06 was innovatively and vigorously implemented, creating a spillover effect across almost all sectors, fields, and aspects of social life. Both the quantity and quality of online public services were enhanced. Fifth, socio-cultural fields received continued attention, particularly regarding care for meritorious individuals, poor households, vulnerable groups, education, healthcare, and public livelihoods (nearly VND90 trillion in policy credit supported over 1.2 million households and beneficiaries, and funding was secured to ensure the statutory base salary increase starting July 1). The construction of 229 inter-level boarding schools in border communes was initiated. Efforts in new human resource training, healthcare, environmental protection, and the search and gathering of martyrs' remains were actively deployed, particularly the 500-day-and-night Campaign to locate, gather, and identify the remains of fallen soldiers. Sixth, national defense and security were firmly maintained; foreign affairs and international integration continued to expand, contributing to elevating the country's standing and opening up new development spaces (in the first six months, Viet Nam upgraded and elevated relations with six countries, bringing the total number of partners at the comprehensive level or higher to 45 countries). On behalf of the Party and State leadership, I commend the Government, ministries, sectors, localities, the business community, and people nationwide for their dedicated efforts to overcome adversity—simultaneously responding to external volatility while executing new, difficult, and unprecedented tasks. This forms a vital foundation as we strive to maximize the achievement of our 2026 targets and prepare more effectively for the subsequent phase. Alongside these achievements, we must frankly acknowledge existing limitations and difficulties, which can be synthesized into six major challenges: First, economic growth reach