VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES ĐỖ LÝ HOÀI TÂN PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE SOUTHEAST REGION TO 2030 VẬN TÀI THỦY-BỘ NỘI ĐỊA Ở
Trang 1VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
ĐỖ LÝ HOÀI TÂN
PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE SOUTHEAST REGION TO 2030
VẬN TÀI THỦY-BỘ
NỘI ĐỊA Ở ĐỒNG BẰNG SÔNG CỬU LONG
Major: Economic Development
Code: 9.31.01.05
SUMMARY OF DOTORAL THESIS OF ECONOMIC
HÀ NỘI – 2020
Trang 2The thesis was completed at:
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
Scientific Advisor:
1 Assoc Prof.Dr Lê Thanh Sang
2 Prof.Dr Nguyễn Trọng Hoài
On …… hour, date ……… month …… year ……
The thesis can be found at:
- Library of the Graduate Academy of Social Sciences
- Vietnam National Library
Trang 3OVERVIEW
1 Rationale of the study
Sustainable development and sustainable growth are based on a harmonious combination of all three pillars of economy, society, environment for the needs of the next generation It becomes the most effective strategy for long-term economic growth and development after receiving the support of the participants of the UNCED Conference held
in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the WSSD Conference in Johannesburg in
2002 In Vietnam, Documents from the 7th National Congress to the 12th National Party Congress affirmed that the direction of sustainable development should be used as a basis for accelerating industrialisation and modernisation to let Vietnam basically become a modern industrialised country In particular, the implementation of sustainable development and economic growth in the region, especially in important economic regions such as the Southeast region (DNB), is also proposed as
an important task for implementing the direction of sustainable development nationwide
The South East region has many advantages in terms of geography, favorable climate, mineral resources, and abundant human resources In addition to the achievements such as the GDP growth rate of the region, especially in Ho Chi Minh City (9.6%), Binh Duong (11.3%) or Dong Nai (12%), which are higher than the general growth rate of the country (5.6%/year), being the region attracting the most FDI in the country, having the highest urbanisation rate in the country (reaching 64.15%) , but the region still faces many challenges in the process of sustainable development and growth in the economy: while Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong and Ba Ria-Vung Tau show the rapid development of all aspects the growth rates of Binh Phuoc and Tay Ninh clearly have not met the expectations and real potential of these two provinces during the past time; economic growth in the region is mainly based on broad growth factors such as untrained labor resources, the increase of capital investment, resource exploitation; The population is concentrated mainly
in Binh Duong and Ho Chi Minh City; The ecological environment in localities has been degraded and seriously polluted
Up to now, it is undeniable that there are many regional research works of provinces, studies of the development of key economic regions
of the Ministry, the State as well as provincial and local plans Despite the values of their referencing and local development planning, the results of these works are still mainly in the form of master plans, which give
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directions for sector development and resource determination regional development (Nguyen Xuan Thu, 2006: 6) In other words, there are not many works focused on analysing and assessing the status of equipment security in the regions such as the Southeast region, pointing out achievements and limitations in the process of economic growth of the region, finding solutions and the new direction for the strategy to promote the economy growth in the region to effectively deal with uncertainties and challenges in the future In order to meet the above requirements, the PhD
candiate decided to choose the topic "Promoting the sustainable economic
growth in the Southeast region to 2030" to be the doctoral thesis to
contribute to the theoretical and practical basis of evaluating the sustainable regional economic growth, thereby helping the Southeast region to come up with appropriate solutions to promote sustainable growth in the economy
2 Research objectives and missions
2.1 Research objectives
The thesis aims to further clarify the basic theoretical issues about economic growth and the direction of regional economic growth in a sustainable manner On that basis, assess the current situation and propose some solutions to promote sustainable economic growth in the Southeast region with a vision to the year of 2030
2.2 Research missions
Clarify the theoretical basis for sustainable economic growth in the region and develop the criteria, indexes, measurement and indicators of evaluating the sustainable economic growth in the region;
Assess the status of the economic growth model in the Southeast region based on the criteria and sustainable economic growth index to identify the limitations, weaknesses, and causes;
Propose the economic sustainable growth targets for the Southeast region region with a vision to the year of 2030 and solutions to implement and promote in order to achieve the proposed targets
3 Subject and scope of the study
3.1 Subject of the study
The sustainable economic growth of the Southeast region of Vietnam
3.2 Scope of the study
Scope of space: The research area of the thesis is the territory of SE with 5 provinces and 1 city including Ho Chi Minh City, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Binh Phuoc and Tay Ninh
Trang 5Scope of time: The thesis studies the status of sustainable economic growth of the Southeast region from 2008 to 2017
4 Methodology and research methods
4.1 Methodology
The study was conducted based on the common views of economic development and the direction of sustainable economic development in relation to other pillars of sustainable development, namely society and environment The organization and analysis process of data are based on the following main theoretical grounds:
Theories on sustainable development, susbtainable growth and susbtainable economic growth
Inheriting achievements and research results from research works related to the content of the thesis
4.2 Research methods
Statistical analysis method is used to quantify and analyse the collected data related to the socio-economic-environmental situation, thereby clarifying the current situation of sustanable economic growth in the region
Logical assessment method is used to study the issue of promoting economic growth in relation to sustainable development, assessing the status of sustainable economic development process in the Southeast region through analysing the unique advantages of the entire Southeast region and make appropriate assessments
Comparative method is used to compare the related data of the Southeast region at different time, of the South East region with the whole country at the same time
In addition, a number of other methods are also used in the research process such as interpretation, inductive methods
5 Contributions of the thesis
Concluding lessons learned in the implementation of promoting sustainable economic growth of regional economies in some countries around the world, which can be applied to the Southeast region
Systematising and supplementing the theory of substainable economic growth of a region
Developing a criteria to evaluate the sustainable economic growth in
a region in general and in the Southeast region in particular
Systematising the data reflecting the current situation of sustainable economic growth in the Southeast region in the period of 2008-2017
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Presenting and applying a comprehensive evaluation method to determine the level of sustainability in the economic growth in the Southeast region in the period of 2008-2017
Proposing key views and solutions to promote sustainable economic growth in the Southeast region region in the vision to 2030
6 Theoretical and practical meanings of the thesis
7 Structure of the thesis
In addition to the introduction, conclusion, list of references and appendices, the thesis includes the following chapters:
Chapter 1: Focusing on the overview of domestic and foreign
researches related to the content of the thesis
Chapter 2: Presenting a number of theoretical issues related to
sustainable regional economic growth including concepts, theoretical basis, patterns, and influencing factors; assess international experiences and lessons learned for the process of sustainable regional economic growth in Vietnam
Chapter 3: Analysing the current situation of sustainable economic
growth in the Southeast region, assessing the achievements and limitations
of the process of sustainable economic growth in the Southeast region in the period of 2008-2017
Chapter 4: Analysing new domestic and international contexts,
making forecasts on the growth of the South East region, and proposing a number of views and solutions to promote the sustainable economic growth in the Southeast region to 2030
CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW OF PUBLICED RESEARCH WORKS RELATED TO SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH 1.1 International research works
1.1.1 Research on economic growth models
Adam Smith's "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776) argued that society is a combination of individuals -
Trang 7economic people, alliances of exchanging relationships In addition, he argued that all personal communication is governed by their own selfishness and interests However, the impact of the "Invisible Hand" will force economic people to protect the common good of society if they want
to protect their own interests, regardless of whether this is not intended Also in this work, Adam Smith also presented the theory of "Capital accumulation" He argued that the source of labor wealth and social assets depends on two factors: Number of employees in material production activities; the development of labor division activities to increase production productivity
The theory of "Capital accumulation" by Adam Smith was later inherited and developed by the economist David Ricardo (1817) with the classic work "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" The Harrod-Domar model is a combination of two independent studies by two economists Roy Harrod (1939) and Evsey Domar (1946) Harrod-Domar stated that investment is the basis for creating future production capital and production capital plays an important role in increasing the size of the economy, in other words, by promoting the rate
of savings or the amount of capital invested, growth will be boosted The strong development of the modern scientific and technological revolution led to the introduction of the Solow growth model (1956) with the theory of "Technocracy" that made many new contributions in the theory of economic growth In particular, Solow emphasizes the role of technical progress to economic growth when it is thought that the development of production methods is the basis to maintain the expansion
of the size of the economy, thereby leading to sustainability of economic growth
By inheriting and applying the capitalist concept of classical economics, Schultz divided capital into two forms: conventional capital and human capital He said that the development of health, education and social security through investment will increase the quality, expertise and technology of workers Conventional capital has thus become human capital, thereby increasing production output and promoting long-term economic growth Lucas (1988) built a growth model of the accumulation
of specialized human capital to supplement and develop the theory of
"Human capital" Accordingly, he divided capital into 2 types: "tangible capital" (physical capital) and "intangible capital" (human capital) The strong rise of globalisation requires the introduction of a new stream of theory, the theory of "new growth", with two representatives
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Romer (1986, 1990) and Scott (1989) to explain the economic growth in the global economy Romer's views were corroborated by Scott (1989) 's study of capital-based growth models In his paper, in addition to emphasising the role of investment in economic growth (since investment was the source of technical progress and human capital accumulation), Scott supported the old-school economics view as he viewed capital and labor were the determinants of "output growth"
Facing the economic downturns due to the negative impacts from environmental pollution and exhaustion of natural resources, the urgent requirement for the world economy is to implement restructuring structure and change a new growth model to ensure sustainable growth and development Most green economists agree to add the element of ecological capital to the economic growth model and think that is the decisive driving force for economic growth in the long term On the one hand, they still acknowledge the essential role of capital, investment, labor and technical advances in economic growth; on the other hand, they complement and emphasise the role of natural resources for economic growth and the urgency of protecting natural resources to carry out growth,
as well as emphasise and expand the role of natural resources government
in long-term growth
1.1.2 Research on regional growth
1.1.2.1 The theory of balanced growth in economics
The economists of this school think that in the process of development and growth, all sectors are closely related to each other, according to the relationship of one industry's input to the other Therefore, they support the growth direction of supply and demand in production, especially in the industrial sector, and see it as the optimal way to achieve
a balanced development of the economy in a region , territory
Some influential representatives of this school include: (1) Rosenstein-Rodan's big push theory (1943), (2) The vicious cycle of Nurkse's poverty (1961)
1.1.2.2 Theories about unbalanced growth in economics
This school argues that economic growth operates on the basis of the rule of unbalanced, differential and specific growth, hence maintaining a balance in the interdisciplinary structure is not really necessary Implications for regional connectivity, including intra-regional and inter-regional links, have also begun to be raised and discussed
Some influential representatives of this school include: (1) the growth pole theory of Perroux (1950) and Hirschmann (1969) growth pole theory,
Trang 9(2) Friedman's central-peripheral theory (1966), (3) ) The reverse U-theory
of Kuznet (1955) and Williamson (1965)
1.1.3 Research on sustainable economic growth
The Brundtland Report emphasizes that the current growth trend is not sustainable For that reason, in order to ensure sustainable development, reducing poverty through economic growth is not only a duty of less developed countries but also a need to be implemented by developed countries in the world through investing their capital in less developed countries to promote the process of globalisation and promote free trade between countries as well as pave the way for global sustainable development (Hoyer and Naess, 2001) Economic growth, often determined by GDP and GDP per capita, is the most effective solution to solve the problem of inequality in living conditions between countries In other words, economic growth, in the form of income growth, is a mandatory condition for the sustainable development process (Kemp and Martens, 2007; Martens and Raza, 2010)
Economic growth to achieve sustainability today needs to emphasise the factors of industrialisation and urbanisation (Ogbimi, 2007) Economic restructuring is also a content often mentioned in the research related to economic growth in general and sustainable economic growth in particular Temin (1999) further examined the relationship between economic restructuring and economic growth by looking at changes in the flow of agricultural labor in 15 European countries in the period of 1955-
1975 The author then concluded that the economic growth rate tends to increase by 0.8% if the proportion of agricultural labor in the total workforce decreases by 20% However, many studies also suggest that restructuring towards modernisation does not mean focusing only on high-tech modern industries and neglecting the role of agriculture and traditional industry Research conducted by Spence et al (2010) through analysing the current state of economic development in China and Thailand had concluded that growth in agriculture is one of the important conditions for free labor to work and since the majority of the poor are mainly located in rural areas, increasing agricultural productivity has a positive impact on poverty reduction
It can be said that the process of economic restructuring has a significant contribution to economic growth and the role of the state manifests itself in making appropriate policies to ensure a smooth transition, thereby helping to keep the nation's economic growth over time (Peneder, 2001) In addition, inheriting the conception of neoclassical and
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new economic growth theories, many studies have investigated the role of human capital in ensuring the sustainable growth in the modern economy Altinok (2007) argued that a causal relationship exists between the quality
of education and the quality of human capital Accordingly, the improvement and perfection in education is a decisive factor for the improvement of the quality of human capital, which in turn leads to the economic equipment of each country
Besides, many issues are raised when considering the linkage between the equipment and economy on protection of the natural environment In his paper, Solow (1991) viewed that economic growth as the only condition to eradicate poverty can have negative effects on future generations Therefore, Solow (1993) argued that the economies of each country need to find a way to pay environmental costs for the depleting resources as an indispensable part to ensure the necessary requirements for
an intergenerational sustainable development process to go smoothly However, many economists, including Daly (1993, 1996), found that all matters in the biosphere of this world are limited in number For that reason, the possibility of an infinite replacement of artificial capital for natural capital, as Solow (1993) noted, is not really feasible
The limited nature of natural capital, the limited capacity of artificial capital, and the increase of environmental pollution, lead to an urgent need for government intervention in order to develop strategies and policies to manage and protect these valuable energy sources Beckerman (1992) strongly voiced his opinion to reduce the attention of global warming and the environmental issues facing countries around the world Kula (1998) pointed out that many economic growth and development strategies in many countries today, besides opening up new industries, contribute to the renovation of urban infrastructure but also leading to unpredictable future due to environmental issues often overlooked The study then pointed out the inadequacies of current economic development policies as one of several causes of severe environmental pollution and the problem of wasting materials in many countries
Thus, it can be seen that many growth policies sometimes lead to undesirable outcomes Therefore, the policy of Sustainable Development and Sustainable Economic Development needs to be assessed and considered to be adaptable to the practical requirements at the time and requires each country and region to take into account the management and use these valuable natural resources as reasonably and efficiently as possible to ensure the process of sustainable economic growth
Trang 111.2 Domestic research works
In order to solve the problems posed by the fact that our country is still at a low development and many regions have high poverty rates, a number of scientific studies examining and assessing the reality of Vietnam's economy in the direction of sustainable development and sustainable economic growth are gradually increasing The process of sustainable development in general and the sustainable economic growth
in particular in Vietnam are still limited Research conducted by Hoang Thi Chinh (2012) analysed the scale of sustainable economic growth of Vietnam in the period of 2001-2010 also pointed out the weaknesses of the economic growth models at that time The quality of human resources or the quality of human capital have a strong impact on economic growth Nguyen Xuan Dung (2008) stated that the development of Vietnam's industry, although fast in some key areas, has not shown the sustainability
in improving the potential of human resources
The process of urbanisation also plays an important role and has a significant impact on the sustainable economic growth of a country or a region However, many studies also show paradoxes and contradictions in the process of implementing urbanisation in order to promote the sustainable economic growth in our country this day Nguyen Quang Vinh (2013) in his study showed that the level of urbanisation in Vietnam in general and the Mekong Delta in particular is still low and mainly concentrated in a few big cities, thus causing population movement from rural areas to urban areas and causing waste pollution in rural areas, thereby negatively affecting the process of socio-economic development
in the rural areas of the regions
In the concept of sustainable development, one of the important issues
is to find the harmony between economic growth and environmental protection (Luu Duc Hai & Nguyen Ngoc Sinh, 2001) The Law on Environmental Protection was amended and supplemented in 2005, which clearly shows Vietnam's cognitive progress on the environmental impact
on the national economy However, the lack of experience and effective management capacity from the authorities and the effort of promoting the goal of turning Vietnam into a modern industrialised country make it is very difficult to strictly implement the Law (Clausen et al., 2011, Lafferty and Hovden, 2003) Specifically, by analysing the data collected from the General Statistics Office and many related sources, Ngo Thi Thanh Truc
et al (2008) pointed out the instability and unsustainability in management and use of chemicals in agriculture in the Mekong Delta In addition, the
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rapid increase of industrial zones in many regions of the country and the limitation of investment resources in waste collection and treatment as well as low environmental awareness in these industrial zones have led to environmental pollution (Phuong Nhung, 2010; Le Thanh Sang, 2013) The authors in Vietnam have defined the criteria to assess the process
of industrialisation and modernisation as part of determining the level of sustainable development of the country or each region Nguyen Ke Tuan
et al (2015) in the book "Developing the country into a modern oriented country" gathered quite a number of research works of the domestic authors that propose the criteria for assessing industrialisation and modernisation of Vietnam Other studies, such as Ngo Dang Thanh et
socialist-al (2009), proposed three basic groups of criteria, one for evaluating the economic development and the second for evaluating the social development, and the third is a group of criteria to assess the environmental development, to reflect the level of the process of industrialisation in our country Do Quoc Sam (2009) based on data from about 20 countries that completed the industrialisation process in the 1960-1970s and combined with other related criteria to build a basic criteria, thereby assessing the process of industrialisation in Vietnam Inheriting the research results of the above authors, Nguyen Hong Son et al (2014) also proposed a set of criteria including 4 criteria: criteria on income/person, criteria on restructuring, the criteria on sustainable development and some reference criteria, in order to specifically assess the level of industrialisation and modernisation of the country
It can be seen that, for international research, the above studies bring
a high reference value when they have generalised the factors affecting the process of sustainable economic growth, imposing an requirement that sustainable economic growth must go hand in hand with the policise of environmental and social sustainability through a rational social management system, and approach these issues through interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary method However, the relevant research works do not really provide clear policies and orientations for each growth period, and
do not show the feasibility of methods of sustainable economic growth in each region Most of the above studies are done with data from European and American countries with the economies quite different from Vietnam which is also a defect that is hard to ignore
An overview of domestic studies shows that these researches are often concentrated in the whole country and their approaches are at many different senses In other words, although there are many topics on
Trang 13sustainable economic development in recent years, not many topics focus
on researching and giving specific policies related to sustainable economic development in a specific region In addition, similar to international studies, most of the domestic researches usually focus on assessing the impact of a number of factors affecting the economic growth process without paying much attention to assess the combined effects of these factors on the country's economic growth in general and in each region’s
in particular In addition, specific methods to improve and promote the sustainable economic growth and the contents of management and control
of policies to improve the sustainable economic growth at many levels have not been clearly defined The development of criteria and indicators systems to assess the current status of sustainable economic growth at the regional level is still ignored It should be emphasised that economic activities to promote development and growth are a continuous process not only within each country but also within each region This shows the need for an in-depth study to comprehensively assess the process of sustainable economic growth to become an important source of documents for the suitable strategy of economic growth and development
Chapter 1 has pointed out some limitations as well as clarifying some gaps in the research related to the content of the thesis For that reason, the thesis focus on: (i) systematising the theoretical and practical basis in assessing and reviewing the situation of regional sustainable economic growth (ii) inheriting and applying the basis of above thesis to build a system of criteria for the purpose of analysing and evaluating the regional sustainable economic growth such as Southeast region; (iii) identifying the peculiarities in the economic growth factors of the Southeast region to propose solutions suitable to its regional characteristics
CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL ISSUES AND INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
ON REGIONAL SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH 2.1 Some concepts about regional sustainable economic growth 2.1.1 Region and economic region
Although there are many different opinions around finding a common concept of region and economic region, but in general, many concepts related to regions and economic regions acknowledge that each country is
a collection of many different regions and many different economic regions will constitute the economy of that country More broadly, while region is defined as a form of physical existence limited to a defined space, the economic region is considered a movement and development space for