According to the Ministry of Finance , total state budget revenue in 2023 is estimated at 1.75 million billion VND, while budget expenditure is estimated at 1.73 million billion VND. Of which, regular expenditure is up to 1.05 million billion VND, accounting for about 61% of total budget expenditure.

According to the 2022 state budget settlement report (the most recent budget period settled by the National Assembly ), the 2022 budget revenue is more than 1.82 million billion VND. Meanwhile, budget expenditure is 1.75 million billion VND.

Notably, the majority of budget expenditure is also for regular expenditure. Specifically, regular expenditure in 2022 will reach VND1,030 trillion, accounting for about 59% of total budget expenditure.

Regular expenditure is the expenditure task of the state budget to ensure the operation of the state apparatus, political organizations, socio-political organizations, support the operations of other organizations and carry out the regular tasks of the State on socio-economic development, ensuring national defense and security.

In recent years, regular expenditure has always been around 1 million billion VND, accounting for about 60-65% of total budget expenditure. The remaining amount is for development investment and principal and interest payments. Of course, that amount is not enough, so the budget has to borrow hundreds of thousands of billions each year.

Looking at the series of budget revenue and regular expenditure figures from 2012 to present, it can be seen that regular expenditure has been increasing steadily. 2012 marked the first time that budget revenue reached the 1 quadrillion VND mark.

Along with the increase in budget revenue, regular expenditure also increased, usually accounting for 58-65% of total budget expenditure. In the 10-year period (2012-2022), budget revenue increased 1.75 times, from 1.03 quadrillion VND to 1.82 quadrillion VND.

However, regular expenditure also increased by 1.71 times, from over 603 trillion VND to 1.03 quadrillion VND. 2020 marked the first time regular expenditure increased to over 1 quadrillion VND and maintained a steady increase thereafter.

This shows that the growth rate of regular expenditure is almost proportional to the growth of budget revenue, putting great pressure on the state budget. High regular expenditure reflects the large scale and costly operations of the administrative apparatus and socio-political organizations.

As a result, the budget is always in deficit, meaning spending is greater than revenue. Every year, the Government has to borrow hundreds of thousands of billions of VND to cover the state budget deficit and have money to invest in projects. In 2022 alone, the total state budget loan is 488,406 billion VND.

High recurrent expenditure has limited resources for development investment. In 2022, the amount spent on development investment is much lower than the recurrent expenditure, at 615,640 billion VND. Not to mention the interest payment of 96,084 billion VND; the principal payment in 2022 is also up to nearly 200 trillion VND.

Thus, without strong measures to reform and streamline the apparatus, budget resources can hardly be used effectively, causing difficulties for socio-economic development goals. Especially when the target of double-digit growth each year is urgently set to become an upper middle-income country by 2030.