Overview of the Party's Viewpoints and Guidelines on Economic Structure Shift in Vietnam Through Congresses

Economic structure. Nowadays, under the impact of economic globalization with one of the most prominent characteristics being financial globalization, the flow of global financial investment capital is increasing rapidly and on a large scale, which has significantly contributed to easing the "bottleneck" of investment capital for developing countries; but in general, capital thirst is still a persistent disease for countries that are wishing to accelerate the industrialization and modernization process. Therefore, determining the economic structure cannot ignore the ability of investment capital that can be mobilized.

Due to the limitations of scale and large degree of dispersion, the market tendency of economic structure formation is that the number of enterprises will be more concentrated in industries that require less investment capital, have the ability to recover capital quickly and have low-level technology. This is demonstrated by the high proportion of areas such as small-scale retail trade (small traders), textile, footwear, toy industries, electronic assembly industry, agricultural processing, daily service provision, etc., in the early stages of industrialization of many newly industrialized economies (NIEs).

However, the impact of capital factors on the formation of economic structures of industrializing economies in today's era is not that simple. The impact of globalization and the nature and extent of state intervention in the economy, first of all through investment policies, have a very great significance for the structural transformation of the economy.

Indeed, foreign investment capital can become one of the strong driving forces, creating a big "push", rapidly promoting the process of restructuring an economy. Foreign capital flows can flow through the channels of foreign direct investment (FDI), official development assistance (ODA),

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commercial lending, remittances or indirect investment in the stock market. Therefore, in order to unblock the flow of investment capital from outside, on the one hand, it is necessary to strongly improve the investment environment, and on the other hand, it is impossible not to build and develop the stock market.

The flow of foreign capital together with domestic capital into specific business sectors again depends largely on the economic policies of the state. In addition to capital from the state budget directly invested in a number of sectors, policies to encourage or discourage investment in a number of sectors also contribute significantly to directing the flow of capital into different sectors and product industries. This is one of the important contents that we will return to in the section on the impact of policy mechanisms on the shift in economic sector structure.

2.4.2. Group of production output factors

If the group of input factors reflects the impact of resources that can be mobilized for production and their allocation to different business areas, the group of product output factors determines the movement trend of the market, which emits the most important signal guiding investment capital flows as well as other production resources to be decided to be allocated to which production areas and on what scale. These factors include: market capacity, consumption habits, availability and substitutability of products, prices and quality of goods and services, government policies, etc.

Next, the thesis will present in detail the impact of three main factors: market capacity, population consumption habits and government policies.

- Market capacity.

The size of the market is one of the very important factors for the movement of resources allocated to different production areas. Businessmen are the ones who analyze very carefully the scale and trend of the market when deciding to invest in a certain product. Normally, the market size (demand) is determined by the size of the population and the level of income. When the income level of the population is low, most of the income is spent only on essential goods, first of all food. These are goods that are considered to have low elasticity, meaning that their consumption demand changes little compared to changes in income level. But when the income of the population increases, the consumption structure of the population also begins to change in the direction of the proportion of spending on essential consumer goods decreasing relatively, while the proportion of spending on higher-end products increases. These types of goods are considered to have a higher elasticity of demand. For example, according to economists' observations, when GDP/person reaches over 100 USD/year, the demand for expensive means such as cars, audio-visual equipment, home furnishings, travel, better food, better clothes... begins to appear, changing the consumption structure which previously focused on essential goods in the form of full meals and warm clothes. Obviously, the signs of structural change requiring payment capacity have an impact on guiding the direction of business investment of investors and positions, significantly affecting the formation of economic structure.

- Consumer habits.

Along with market size, consumer habits are a very important “output” factor that businesses often pay close attention to when deciding to invest capital and choose products to bring to market. Although these are

The decision is within the scope of micromanagement, but has great significance for the formation of the product structure (sub-sector structure) of the national economy. The preference for consumption of certain types of products requires investors to research to find ways to meet them, and therefore, the satisfaction of consumers has become one of the indicators affecting the formation of the structure of the economy.

- Policy mechanism factors.

The policy structure really has a very strong impact on the general trend of the formation and transformation of the economic structure, including the structure of the industry, the structure of the components and the structure of the territory of the economy. There are many examples demonstrating the impact of the policy mechanism on the transformation of the economic structure. For example, during a long period of time under the centralized planning mechanism, the trend of forming the general economic structure of Vietnam and many socialist countries at that time was to "prioritize the development of heavy industry". In a more extreme form, there were campaigns like the "everyone makes iron and steel" campaign of China in the 60s and 70s. From this direction, the largest part of Vietnam's national resources for a long period was also devoted to the development of the heavy industry sector. For many reasons, this program did not bring about the expected results. Another policy that was replaced in the early 1980s was the “3 major economic programs: Food - foodstuff, consumer goods and export goods”. The economic structure was thus adjusted to a certain extent because resources were reallocated in a direction that gave more priority to these economic programs. The situation was similar for economic sectors, when the renovation policy with the policy of diversifying economic sectors was affirmed, non-state economic sectors had the conditions to develop along with the direction of concentration on key economic regions in Vietnam or the program of developing a strip economy.

The past coastal development and the current Western development program in China are very clear examples of the impact of policy mechanism factors on the regional and territorial economic restructuring of the economy.

Thus, in the conditions of a market economy, the study of the impact of market factors (product output) is an indispensable content for economic restructuring policies. The simple reason is that their influence on the trend of economic restructuring is as strong as that of supply factors (production inputs). However, this is a weakness in the approach to the study of economic restructuring in Vietnam today, partly due to the "habit" of focusing only on the aspects of material production factors in the previous centralized planning economic mechanism that still strongly dominates economic policy thinking.

In short, the process of economic restructuring is affected by many factors. In the current conditions, under the impact of globalization, marketization, and rapid scientific and technological progress, the factors affecting economic restructuring are constantly changing and contain economic contents that are not entirely the same. Therefore, when assessing the level of impact of each factor as well as synthesizing those factors, it is necessary to view them as "dynamic" processes to consider the long-term impact trend on the process of economic restructuring. However, no matter how the problem is approached, in a market economy, the set of input factors (production resources), output (market conditions) and policy mechanisms, mainly the impact of the state, are still the most important factors for the trend of economic restructuring.

3. OVERVIEW OF THE PARTY'S VIEWPOINTS AND POLICIES ON ECONOMIC STRUCTURE TRANSFORMATION IN VIETNAM THROUGH CONGRESSES

Right from the 3rd Party Congress (1960), the issue of industrialization and economic restructuring was mentioned with the guiding viewpoint of "practicing

"To carry out socialist industrialization by giving priority to the rational development of heavy industry, while at the same time striving to develop agriculture and light industry" 4 .

The reason for approaching the problem of industrialization by emphasizing the development of heavy industry from the beginning in the industrialization process of this period is:

+ Starting from a political point of view with the assertion that it is the only true loyalty to Marxist economic theory.

+ The "leverage" role of heavy industry for the entire national economy.

+ The pressure of circumstances determines the urgency (necessary condition): small-scale production is common; building a large rear base in the North to support the struggle to liberate the South.

Sixteen years later, after completing the task of national reunification, the 4th Party Congress (1976) reaffirmed the task of “promoting the socialist industrialization of the country” with the motto of “prioritizing” the development of heavy industry in a reasonable manner, but not “ at the same time” , but instead “ on the basis of developing agriculture and light industry”. Although replacing the phrase “at the same time” with “on the basis of” implied a certain change in defining more clearly the role of agriculture and light industry as the foundation for the development of heavy industry, the overarching and consistent ideology was still to emphasize heavy industry.

The 5th Party Congress (1982), while continuing to affirm the consistent policy of considering industrialization as the central task of the transition period to socialism, initially pointed out the mistake in the structural policy, the key point of which was the lack of adequate preparation of its essential preconditions. Faced with the stagnation that threatened to lead to crisis, the 5th Congress

4 (CPV - Documents of the 3rd National Congress of Delegates. Truth Publishing House, Hanoi, 1960, p.79).

emphasizing the multi-stage nature of the industrialization journey. Therefore, instead of the view that we must “promote industrialization”, now, in the first stage, the structural issue is perceived as “focusing on developing agriculture, considering agriculture as the leading front, striving to boost the production of consumer goods and continuing to build a number of important heavy industries” 5 .

The initial adjustments in the structural perspective in the early period of industrialization of the 5th Congress essentially acknowledged the immaturity of the economy to shift its structure towards industry, especially heavy industry, without causing imbalances that could directly lead to crisis. However, the structural repairs of the early 1980s were still assessed as “not meeting requirements”.

Among the reasons why the correction was not thorough, the main one was based on the very way of reasoning to form that erroneous viewpoint in order to correct it. And it was in this aspect that the 6th Congress (1986) with its way of raising the issue of "renewing economic thinking" truly marked a fundamental turning point in the theoretical understanding of the economic sector structure in the industrialization period.

Until 1986, that is, more than 10 years after the country was unified and declared to " promote" industrialization, and nearly 5 years after implementing "production, rearranging basic construction to improve investment efficiency, to stabilize the socio-economic situation, stabilize people's lives, create the premise to promote industrialization", we still "have not achieved the goals set by the 5th Congress". Those assessments of "looking straight at the truth, clearly stating the truth" show that, in fact, they are optimistic assessments of the advantages that form the basis for the policy of "promoting industrialization" by "prioritizing

5 (Communist Party of Vietnam - Documents of the 5th National Congress of Delegates, Vol. 1, Truth Publishing House, Hanoi, 1960, p.62).

The congress acknowledged “mistakes in economic restructuring” and the main cause was pointed out as “subjective and hasty guiding ideology, wanting to skip necessary steps… In restructuring the economic structure, first of all the production and investment structure, it often comes from the desire to go fast, without taking into account actual conditions and capabilities” 6 . As a result, “we have not progressed much from the very low starting point. The mistakes and shortcomings that have been made have made the situation even more difficult”.

From re-evaluating the current situation of the starting point as above, the 6th Congress (1986) determined that the structural solution was to " really focus human and financial resources on implementing the three target programs on food, consumer goods and export goods".

Thus, the 6th Congress still inherited the task of industrialization which was identified as the center during the transition period as proposed by the 3rd Congress (1960) and the multi-stage nature affirmed by the 5th Congress (1982). However, here, the specific tasks of the immediate years of the first stage (1986-1990) were focused on 3 major economic programs: food, consumer goods and export goods. The tasks of heavy industry and infrastructure were directed towards serving the "major economic programs" rather than advocating strong development in a relatively independent manner as before. The only industry given priority for development was the energy industry (electricity, coal, oil and gas) instead of developing a number of heavy industries as proposed by the 5th Congress.

At the 7th Congress (1991), after reviewing the implementation of the "renovation" process, it noted "clear progress in implementing the goals of the 3 economic programs (food, consumer goods, export goods), and at the same time stated that "the socio-economic crisis

6 (CPV - Documents of the 6th National Congress of Delegates. Truth Publishing House, Hanoi, 1987, pp. 19-20).

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