Wastefulness poses a greater threat to Vietnam's development than corruption, according to Party General Secretary To Lam.

Lam recently quoted late President Ho Chi Minh as saying that while wastefulness does not involve embezzling public assets, its consequences are deeply damaging for both the people and the government.

Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index highlights Vietnam and China's comparable progress in addressing corruption, with their scores improving from 27.9 and 28.8 in 1997 to 41 and 42 in 2023.

Data from the World Bank showed that China’s gross domestic product (GDP) surged 24.9 times or 8.8 percent per year, while Vietnam’s respective figures were 10.6 times or 6.4 percent.

The GDP per capita of the two countries was equivalent in 1985, but China’s tripled that of Vietnam in 2023.

China has moved close to the threshold of a high-income country, which is relevant as economic development is a measurement of the effective use of resources or the level of wastefulness.

Had wastefulness been eliminated, Vietnam could have matched China's economic growth, with its GDP potentially reaching $1 trillion.

Over the past four decades of Doi Moi, the economic reforms launched in 1986 to build a socialist-oriented market economy, Vietnam is estimated to have lost trillions of U.S. dollars to wastefulness.

Without such losses, the Southeast Asian country would likely be significantly more developed and prosperous today.

Party General Secretary Lam has pointed out six types of wastefulness that can be seen everywhere.

One of the most glaring and critical issues lies in the process of issuing policies and piloting new initiatives. The mechanisms for proposing and approving policies are often fragmented and lack clear focus, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

Japan, South Korea, and China offer successful examples of combating wastefulness by adopting a strategic approach.

These countries studied effective models from around the world and tested them in cities with favorable conditions and strong development potential.

Once the models proved successful, they were scaled up nationwide.

In contrast, when a locality in Vietnam pilots a new mechanism, other regions often rush to propose similar schemes for approval, which has led to an inefficient economy and haphazard land use in urban development, undermining long-term growth and planning.

Vietnam now has hundreds of thousands of hectares of unused land attached to infrastructure at prime sites in urban regions. Nevertheless, more planning is still done on millions of hectares of land, which will be then deserted.

These problems stem from a tendency to follow trends blindly, an obsession with achieving quick results, flaws in planning and policymaking, and the unhealthy dynamics of the real estate market.

To combat wastefulness, Vietnam needs to apply lessons from other countries and mobilize resources to work out breakthrough policies and remove obstacles to create new driving forces for development.

If Vietnam can fully utilize millions of hectares of land with existing infrastructure and invest in developing essential facilities, its GDP could rise by hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars.

Achieving its goal of becoming a high-income country would then be within reach.

To realize this potential, Vietnam should focus on implementing proven successful models rather than relying on special policies rooted in the inefficient proposal-approval process.

* This article was originally written in Vietnamese by Dr. Huynh The Du.

Like us on Facebook or  follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!