State budget becomes more sustainable: Finance Minister

Finance Minister Dinh Tien Dung speaks at the National Assembly's plenum on October 31

According to the report, the spending structure of the State budget is shifting positively with most essential five-year targets surpassed.

Overspending has been kept under control, averaging 3.6-3.7 percent of the GDP during the period from 2016 to 2019, while the target is 3.9 percent. The rate is envisioned to be at 3.44 percent of the GDP in 2020, the report said.

The Finance Minister also talked about difficulties of the State budget, one of which is the declining revenue from tax and fees, mainly caused by dropping contribution from crude oil and import-export.

Therefore, it is necessary to revise the revenue policy in order to collect an additional 300 trillion VND to compensate for the reduction in revenue from crude oil and import-export activities.

In addition, several industries and sectors would not achieve the high growth as expected, affecting contributions to the State budget.

Minister Dung said the ministry is researching on measures to ensure both the competitiveness of the investment environment and budget revenues in accordance with international practice. The ministry will also take measures to fight tax evasion and transfer pricing, and address tax arrears, so as to fulfill the five-year targets at the highest level possible.

In reply to some NA deputies’ concern about unsustainable budget revenue, the minister said the State budget is becoming more and more sustainable, with revenues from the three economic sectors (state, non-state and foreign-invested sectors) are projected to make up nearly 45 percent of total State budget revenue, while the rate was only 39 percent in 2017.