Hanoi (VNA) - Poorlyimplemented economic reforms have left Vietnam with a distorted market stillstruggling to overcome the shadow of inefficient State-owned enterprises, aneconomist said on January 18.

“It seems like Vietnam loves themarket, but is somehow also scared of it,” head of the Central Institute forEconomic Management, Nguyen Dinh Cung, said at the Vietnam Sustainability Forumin Hanoi.

The two-day forum, co-organised by theAssociation of Vietnamese Scientists and Experts, and the Academy of Policy andDevelopment, attracted about 100 policy makers, academics and entrepreneursfrom Vietnam and overseas. They discussed visionary initiatives for sustainabledevelopment of Vietnam.

The Minister of Planning andInvestment, Nguyen Chi Dung, said that the country managed to achieve an impressivegrowth rate of 6.8 per cent last year and gained remarkable success inrestructuring the economy, however, he admitted that many obstacles wereunsolved.

“GDP per capita and averageproductivity is still relatively low, while the wealth gap is set to widentogether with environmental issues. The fourth industrial revolution and theinternational economic integration are all challenges,” Dung said.

It is estimated Vietnam will need anaverage gross domestic growth (GDP) of 8 percent, and an average productivitygrowth rate of 7 percent for at least 15 to 20 years to catch up with advancedeconomies in the world, Cung said. The path to economic growth was only throughan open market, which Vietnam was struggling to become.

“Vietnam so far has not only failed toreduce the State-owned sector and expand the private one, but couldn’t shiftthe non-official economic sector to the official one,” Cung said. “In otherwords, Vietnam can’t transform economic resources from being inefficient toefficient.”

The forum was told that the Vietnameseworkforce was also at risk in the new times of digital world and automation. Inthe face of the fourth industrial revolution already in motion, education andskill training become even more important to Vietnam’s sustainable development,said Andreas Schkeicher, head of the Directorate for Education and Skills underthe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Management.

He warned that the rapid change oftechnologies would cost the jobs of millions of people who did not have theright skills.

Research by the World Economic Forum in2016 predicted that more than five million jobs in 15 of the world’s largesteconomies, including ASEAN, would be lost by 2020 through automation in thefourth industrial revolution.

The job loss to automation would beinevitable, said Olivier Brechard, director of WebForce3 web-developmentschool, but the fourth industrial revolution would also create many otherjobs that required new skills.

“We are uncertain what jobs will belost and what new ones will be created in the future,” Brechard said.

“Workers have to keep training andretraining to keep up with any changes, especially when most jobs will soonintegrate with digital skills.” VNA