Business
Vietnam stands firm with full-year growth target of 6.7%
  • | Nhan Dan | May 22, 2017 10:06 PM
The Vietnamese government will not revise its growth target for 2017, remaining determined to ensure the economy will grow by 6.7%, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh told the National Assembly on May 22.



Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh

According to the government report, the GDP target must be achieved to ensure other macroeconomic indicators such as budget, public debt, export and import, employment and income are maintained.

In addition, a growth rate of 6.7% for 2017 will create the foundation for sustainable growth in the following years whilst guaranteeing the growth target of 6.5%-7% for the 2016-2020 period.

Deputy PM Binh outlined a series of measures required to reach that goal, such as continuing to pursue a proactive and flexible macroeconomic policy, channelling credit to prioritised sectors and expediting public investment disbursement.

The government report said improvement was seen in many of the economy’s sectors in the early months of 2017 when compared with the same period last year.

Agriculture rose by 2.03% in the January-March period compared with a 1.31% contraction in the first quarter of 2016, while the industrial production index in April went up by 7.4%, compared with an expansion of 5.5% a month earlier and 4.1% rise in the previous quarter.

Credit grew by 5.75% in the first four months of 2017, the highest rate seen during the same period in the last six years. Exports climbed 16.8% and foreign direct investment pledges soared 40.5% to US$10.6 billion.

This period also saw the establishment of nearly 40,000 new enterprises with a total registered capital estimated at VND825 trillion (US$36.3 billion).

However, GDP growth in the first quarter only reached 5.1%, lower than the 5.48% rate recorded in the same quarter of 2016, due to a shrinking mining sector, a slowdown in manufacturing and delays in investment allocation and disbursement.

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