Hanoi (VNA) – With drastic, creative, flexible andtimely directions of the Government and the Prime Minister, the engagement ofthe whole political system and business community, and the strong support frompeople, Vietnam has obtained important results in performing the dual tasks offighting COVID-19 and boosting socio-economic development.

The remark was made by Minister, Chairman of theGovernment’s Office and Spokesman of the Government Mai Tien Dung at theCabinet’s regular press conference on August 3.

He noted that after 99 straight days withoutcommunity COVID-19 transmission, Vietnam has recorded locally infected cases inseveral localities, especially some hospitals in central Da Nang city. TheGovernment’s permanent members shortly held three meetings under the chair ofthe PM to discuss response measures.

In July, the PM chaired a teleconference topromote the disbursement of public investment and official developmentassistance while working with some major provinces and cities like Ho Chi MinhCity and several localities in the central, Central Highlands and Mekong Deltaregions to boost public investment disbursement to facilitate growth.

The Government leader also ordered theestablishment of seven working teams to visit localities, ministries andsectors to address difficulties facing businesses and step up public investmentdisbursement, Dung said.

Despites the pandemic’s negative impact, thanksto breakthrough efforts, Vietnam recorded month-on-month improvement insocio-economic development during the first seven months of 2020, withmacro-economic stability sustained, inflation controlled, and the consumerprice index growth slowing down.

However, as community transmission of COVID-19has returned since late July, challenges remain huge for the time ahead, headmitted, pointing out that there are many latent risks to the macro-economicstability; public investment disbursement has yet to meet requirements; manyindustries are still struggling; the service sector, especially aviation andtourism, has been hardly hit; and the number of businesses dissolved orsuspending operations, as well as job losses, have increased.

The Government considers the early August asdecisive to whether or not COVID-19 will break out on a large scale, so it isnecessary to summon every resource to deal with any outbreaks, especially theone in Da Nang, persistently carry out disease prevention and control measures,fulfill socio-economic development targets, and continue ensuring socialsecurity, social order and safety, defence, security and external activities,the official stressed.

Dung also noted several solutions issued by theGovernment, including drastically implementing synchronous anti-COVID-19measures but still creating the best possible conditions for the flows ofgoods, and accelerating the disbursement of public funds which must be viewedas the focal political task for 2020./.