Vietnam builds the market economy from the planned economy, in which development plans, especially the medium-term socio-economic development plans, were determined by the leading economic management tools. Currently, the development plans remain the important tools of economic management. However, the contents and methodologies for development planning have changed considerably. The plans have been built according to the direction of the market and consider macroeconomic forecasts as the most important input for planning. The purpose of this paper is to briefly present the structure of a macro-econometric model for medium-term socio-economic development planning in Vietnam. The model is based on the main ideas of the forecasting procedures and the system of forecast models for strategic planning in the Russian Federation. Furthermore, the model utilizes the experience of macro-econometric models in other countries. This model is based on the approaches of supply and demand, and is organized into blocks that have a close relationship to combine forecasts from the built model and using judgmental methods in a favourable way. The model can fully forecast the needs of socio-economic development planning. It is also used to build forecast scenarios and to assess the impact of shocks and economic policies.

Vietnam is building the market economy while still determining development plans as important tools for managing and operating the economy. In response to the challenges posed by economic globalization, the Vietnamese government has established the necessity to promote the macro economic analysis and forecasting for ensuring the government’s policy-making and socio-economic development planning. A macro-econometric model for medium-term socio-economic development planning in Vietnam was built and called the Vietnam’s model. This paper answers the following questions: which key applications can be implemented using the model? What is the model’s quality of forecasts? The paper briefly presents how to forecast using the model. Then, I demonstrate how to synthesise, validate, balance and combine the model’s forecasts implemented by the ministries and provincial authorities, and with application of judgemental methods. I establish the ways to build baseline and target forecast scenarios. The paper shows how the model can evaluate shocks and economic policies. Additionally, I demonstrate how to adjust planned target indicators in the process of implementing the medium-term socio-economic development plan. The article also evaluates the accuracy of the model’s ex-ante forecasts. Finally, I apply the model’s ex-ante forecasts for producing the official forecasts for building the Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) at national scope for the period from 2016 to 2020.