THE TRANSITION OF SECTORAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURE TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

---**--- PHAM THI NGA THE TRANSITION OF SECTORAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURE TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE Major: Political Economy Code: 62.31.01.02 PhD.. Research

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PHAM THI NGA

THE TRANSITION OF SECTORAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURE TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

Major: Political Economy Code: 62.31.01.02

PhD DISSERTATION SUMMARY

Hanoi, 2016

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Scientific supervisors: 1 Assoc Prof Dr Ha Huy Thanh

2 Dr Tran Ngoc Ngoan

Opponent 1: Assoc Prof Dr Mai Thi Thanh Xuan Opponent 2: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Trong Xuan Opponent 3: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Dinh Long

The PhD dissertation will be defended in front of the Dissertation Scoring

Council of the Academy

at the Graduate Academy of Social Sciences, 477 Nguyen Trai Street,

Thanh Xuan District, Hanoi

Time……….date…….month………year 20…….

However, besides the achievements, Thai Nguyen is also facing strong challenges in the sustainable development of economy, society and environment In particular, in the master planning and plans for the socio-economic development in the province, three important aspects of sustainable development have not really been combined and closely integrated

Stemming from the above reasons, the study on "The transition

of sectoral economic structure in Thai Nguyen province towards sustainable development" is an urgent and important requirement in

the context of the current development of Thai Nguyen province

2 Research aims and research tasks

2.1 Research aims

To clarify the basic theoretical issues of sectoral economic structure transition in relation to the requirements of sustainable development in order to assess the current situation and give recommendations of the sectoral economic structure transition towards sustainable development in Thai Nguyen province in the period 2015 - 2020 and vision to 2030

- Recommend primary perspectives and solutions to promote the sectoral economic structure transition towards sustainable development in Thai Nguyen province in the period 2015 - 2020 and vision to 2030

3 Research Subject and research scope

3.1 Research Subject

The dissertation focused on studying the issues related to the transition of sectoral economic structure in Thai Nguyen province in relation to the requirements of sustainable development (in terms of economy - society - environment) under the perspective of political economics

4 Research scope

(i) Scope of content

Within the dissertation, the author focused on the theoretical and practical issues of sectoral economic structure transition,

sustainable development and the mutual impact between them in terms of political economy The perspective of sustainable development used in this research mainly focused on three basic elements as economy, society and environment

(ii) Scope of time

The author intended most of the information and data will be collected, updated and calculated primarily in the period 2006

2015 Also, the author intended to propose some solutions to the transition of sectoral economic structure in Thai Nguyen province towards sustainable development up to 2020 and vision to 2030

(iii) Scope of space

The dissertation focused on researching the transition of sectoral economic structure in Thai Nguyen province in relation to Hanoi and neighboring provinces in the key Northern economic region

4 Rationale and research methology

4.1 Rationale

The dissertation relied on the following rationale:

- The methodological basis of the dissertation included dialectical materialism method and historical materialism method of Marxism – Leninism

- The basic theoretical points of Marxism – Leninism on economic structure, sectoral economic structure transition and sustainable development

- The perspectives and policies of the Party and policies of the State on economic structure, sectoral economic structure transition and sustainable development;

- The theories of economic structure transition and sustainable development;

- The inheritance of the result of some previous researches related to the dissertation project

4.2 Research methodology

- Research approach group: Dialectical materialism method; logical - historical method, etc

- Theoretical research group: Information collecting, sorting and

processing method; SWOT method, PEEST method

- Practical research group: Statistical and comparative

method; analytical method of practical model

In addition, the method of scientific abstraction was regularly used in the research

5 New contributions of the dissertation

After the completion of dissertation, there may be some new theoretical and practical contributions as follows:

- The dissertation summarized the lessons learned that can be applied to Thai Nguyen province in the immediate and long-term periods

- The dissertation focused on analyzing the current situation of the transition of sectoral economic structure towards sustainable development on three aspects of economy, society and environment

in Thai Nguyen province, which reviewed the achievements and shortcomings, then caused the interpretations of the above shortcomings;

- The dissertation recommended a system of solutions to promote the transition of sector economic structure towards sustainable development in Thai Nguyen province, striving to make Thai Nguyen province to become an industrial province by 2020

6 The dissertation structure

In addition to the introduction, conclusion, appendices and reference list, the dissertation content is structured of 4 chapters

Chapter 1: The overview of the research

Chapter 2: The rationale and experiences in the transition of

sectoral economic structure towards sustainable development

Chapter 3: The current situation of the sectoral economic structure

transition towards sustainable development in Thai Nguyen province

Chapter 4: Perspectives and solutions to promote the transition

of sectoral economic structure towards sustainable development in Thai Nguyen province

Chapter 1 THE OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH

1.1 Previous researches on the economic structure and the transition of sectoral economic structure

1.1.1 The research situation in the world

The transition of sectoral economic structure was mentioned in the doctrine of social labor division and the doctrine of social reproduction by Karl Marx

Arguments on the economic development stage were given by the prominent representative W.W Rostow The scholar Tatyana P Soubbotina clarified the economic development through the stages of agriculturalization, industrialization, and post-industrialization Lately, the "structuralism school" appeared with viewpoints on the economic structure development in the context of globalization and expansion of the global value chain In particular, arguments on structural changes of the classical school ranked a primary position, typified as "Lewis – Fellner – Ranis’s dualistic economic model” and Chenery’s structural analysis model

The World Bank (WB) had two major research projects: "The East Asian Miracle" and "Ruminating on the East Asian Miracle" These two projects considered the structural policies of Asian countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.)

1.1.2 The research situation in Vietnam

In Vietnam, the transition of economic structure in general and the transition of sectoral economic structure in particular were concerned about and studied by a lot of scientists of many

different aspects: "The transition of economic structure in terms of integration with the region and the world," by Prof Dr Le Du

Phong and Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thanh Do (1999); the State-level

scientific project, code KH 02-05 "The transition of sectoral economic structure during industrialization and modernization" (2005) edited by Bui Tat Thang "Scientific rationale for adjusting the sectoral structure policy in conditions of Vietnam’s international economic integration" – The ministerial-

level-scientific project reported by Dang Thi Hieu La, etc

From the analysis of the above studies, the author gave possible conclusions as follows:

First, the author hoped to inherit research achievements made

by the scientists mentioned above

Second, unlike the previous studies which mainly focused on the transition of sectoral economic structure in terms of quantity, this study

paid special attention to the transition of sectoral economic structure

in terms of quality from the perspective of political economy

Third, unlike the previous studies on the transition of sectoral

economic structure (focusing primarily on the production structure), this paper examined the transition of sectoral economic structure in the collective relationship between economic, social, environmental issues towards sustainable development; and evaluated the role and impact of the inside and outside factors of the economic system to the transition of sectoral economic structure towards sustainable development

1.2 Researches on sustainable development

1.2.1 The research situation in the world

* On the concept of sustainable development

As soon as fundamental concepts of historical materialism were formed, Marx and Friedrich Engels considered the relationships between man and nature, between human history and

natural history as an organic and inseparable unity This is really

a rationale for the sustainable development strategy of each country as well as of all mankind

The concept of sustainable development was performed by

the WCED in the report “Our Common Future”; then the

economists focused on sustainable development issues Barbier and Markandya (1990) synthesized theories and divided definitions into two groups (ie, in wide and narrow sense) Next, Hofkes (1996) came up with the growth model in which the elements of natural resources were included, which could calculate the optimal exploitation in terms of environmental sustainability

* Researches on statistical indicator system for sustainable development

In 1995, the Committee for Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations established a system of statistical indicators including 134 national indicators of sustainable development; these indicators were summarized in the "Green Book", which was published widespread In 2001, the UN CDS launched a system of recommended indicators including 15 main themes, 38 branch themes and 58 indicators

In addition, many scholars were interested in this issue: Peter

P Rogers, Kazi F.Jalal and John A Boyd in "An Introduction to Sustainable Development", published in 2007, introduced the

fundamental knowledge of sustainable development John Blewitt

in "Understanding sustainable development" published in 2008

also played an important part in the theory of sustainable

development Simon Bell and Stephen Morse in "Sustainability Indicators: Measuring the Immeasurable” published in 2008

made major contributions to the theory and practice in use of sustainable development indicators

1.2.2 The research situation in Vietnam

* Sustainable development in Vietnam’s development policy

The perspective of sustainable development was particularly clearly asserted in the socio-economic development strategy 1991 -

2000 and related documents through Party Congress VII, VIII, IX, X,

XI After that, the Prime Minister issued the strategic orientation for sustainable development in Vietnam (Vietnam Agenda 21)

* Researches on sustainable development in Vietnam

The most basic and systematic research on sustainable

development in Vietnam was done within the project "Support to the development and implementation of Vietnam Agenda 21" -

VIE/01/021 hosted by the Ministry of Planning and

Investment (MPI) with the participation of ministries, sectors,

localities and cooperation of the United Nations Development

Programme (UNDP), the Denmark International Development

Agency (DANIDA) and the Sweden International Development Agency (SIDA)

On the academic side, there were projects implemented by the authors as Assoc Prof Dr Ha Huy Thanh – Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Ngoc Khanh (eds) (2009), "Sustainable development from concept to action", Hanoi, Social Science Publishing House, Assoc

Prof Dr Bui Tat Thang, Dr Luu Duc Hai, Dr Tran Hong Quang

(2014), "Towards a sustainable economy", Social Sciences Publishing House, Ha Noi

For Thai Nguyen province, related to issues of sustainable development, the People's Committee of Thai Nguyen province

published "The strategic orientation for sustainable development in Thai Nguyen to 2020 (Thai Nguyen Agenda 21)"

1.3 The researches on the transition of economic structure associated with sustainable development

On this content, it is important to mention the works as "The transition of sectoral economic structure in view of sustainable development of the key Northern economic region - Vietnam", PhD

Economics University; "The relationship between economic growth and sustainable development in Vietnam", the special ministerial

level project in 2009, the Central Institute for Economic

Management; "The transition of sectoral economic structure towards sustainable development in Vietnam ", monograph, Assoc Prof Dr

Pham Thi Khanh, National Political Publishing House, 2010

One of the most recent researches was updated and referred

by the author was the PhD Dissertation implemented by Ngo Thai

Ha, which focused on “the transition of sectoral economic structure towards sustainable development in Vietnam."

1.4 The raising issues and research orientation of the dissertation

1.4.1 The raising issues should be further studied

First, so far, there has been no study on the transition of sectoral

economic structure in relation to the sustainable development issues for

a particular province as Thai Nguyen

Second, at present, the province's orientation of sectoral

economic structure transition has not been based on scientific grounds on the basis of thorough analysis of the province’s advantages of nature and society, especially in the new context of

economic integration and the impact of climate change to the current global

Thus, in this dissertation, the author had a deep analysis and interpretation of the major issues on theory and practice of the sectoral economic structure transition towards sustainable development for a particular province as Thai Nguyen, then proposed some specific solutions to ensure the sustainability of that kind of transition

1.4.2 Research orientation of the dissertation

- On approach: The dissertation studied the transition of sectoral

economic structure of Thai Nguyen province towards sustainable development on three aspects: economy, society and environment The study was done in view of the political economics

- On theory: The dissertation clarified the rationale, criteria and

factors affecting the economic sector restructuring process towards sustainable development The issue of sustainable development mainly focused on three aspects: economy, society and environment

- On practice:

+ Lessons learned for the transition of sectoral economic

structure towards sustainable development in Thai Nguyen province were drawn on the basis of theoretical analysis and practical experiences of some countries in the world (Korea, China) and some provinces and cities in Vietnam (Vinh Phuc, Da Nang)

+ The analysis and assessment of the sustainability of sectoral economic structure transition in Thai Nguyen province in the period

2006 - 2015 was done on the basis of arguments made clear in chapter 2 + Based on the analysis and assessment of the current situation in chapter 3, the dissertation will propose perspectives and solutions to the transition of sectoral economic structure towards sustainable development in Thai Nguyen province up to 2020 and vision to 2030

Chapter 2 THE RATIONALE AND PRACTICE OF SECTORAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURE TRANSITION TOWARDS

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

2.1 The rationale for sectoral economic structure transition towards sustainable development

2.1.1 Arguments on economic structure and sectoral economic structure transition

2.1.1.1 Eeconomic structure and sectoral economic structure

* Economic structure

Now there are many concepts of economic structure

According to Vietnam Encyclopedia, "Economic structure is the overall economic sectors, areas and divisions which have a relatively stable organic relationship

* Sectoral economic structure

Sectoral economic structure is a combination of economic sectors and a ratio relationship between economic sectors shown in the position and weight of each sector in the overall national economy Sectoral economic structure transition reflects the level of social division of labor in the economy and the development level

of productive forces

2.1.1.2 Sectoral economic structure transition

Sectoral economic structure transition was mentioned by the schools of economic theory from many different approaches Three

major economic schools were Marxist economics; mainstream economics and development economics

2.1.2 Arguments on sustainable development

2.1.2.1 The concept of sustainable development

In Section 4, Article 3 of the Law on Protection of the

environment, sustainable development was defined as the