Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has assured that the government will continue loosening monetary and fiscal policies as part of its demand stimulus efforts to head off the economic slowdown.
Chairing a monthly meeting Jun 3, PM Dung urged the State Bank of Vietnam to closely follow up monetary, interest, forex markets and control credit growth to ensure security and safety of the banking system.
“Top task is to stabilize the macro situation from now till end-2009,” Mr Dung emphasized, requesting ministries, sectors, provincial and municipal authorities to focus on implementation of demand stimulus packages worth up US$8 billion, or 10 per cent the country’s GDP value, to avert recession.
This year, the government has targeted to cap credit growth at no more than 30 per cent, Vietnam Television said. Vietnam's money supply, M2, was up 11.4 per cent between January and April, the SBV said.
Mr Dung also urged to speed up disbursements of investment projects using funds from state budget, government bonds, FDI, ODA, which are sluggish now, state media said.
Between January and May disbursements of g-bonds reached only VND5.39 trillion, meeting only 15 per cent of the initially targeted VND36 trillion, the government said.
The Vietnamese prime minister also pushed trade promotion activities to boost exports and industrial and agriculture production.
The government will also focus on demand stimulus packages in rural Vietnam by buying up rice from farmers, providing soft loans for them to buy machines.
The government has targeted to bring down inflation to 6 per cent and GDP growth of 5 per cent this year, the state-run New Hanoi newspaper said.
At last, Mr Dung asked local authorities to fight epidemics particularly A/H1N1. (chinhphu.vn, The People)
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