Economic Growth Continues to Accelerate

Viet Nam’s economy continued to rebound in Q3/2012 with the growth rate of 5.35 percent compared to 4 percent in Q1 and 4.66 percent in Q2, according to the General Statistics Office’s latest data.

 

The signal reflects the Government’s strong endeavor to get the economy back on track while it had to focus on curbing inflation and stabilizing macro-economy amid global economic recession.

 

The General Statistics Office reported Thursday that Viet Nam's industrial production index rose 9.7 percent in September from a year earlier, up from August's 4.4 percent rise and its most robust gain since February. Retail sales of goods and services in the first nine months of the year rose 17 percent from a year earlier. The country posted a trade surplus of $34 million in the January-September period, compared with a deficit of nearly $8.16 billion a year earlier, the statistics office said.

 

However, the economy only expanded at 4.73 percent in the first nine months of 2012 while the Government targeted the growth rate of 5.5 percent for the year. The country's GDP growth averaged 7.2 percent over the past decades, and was 5.9 percent in 2011.

 

To realize the whole-year target, drastic effort must be made in the fourth quarter, said PM Nguyen Tan Dung at the Government’s regular meeting on September 27.

In next three months, the Government said it will focus on curbing inflation and stabilizing macro-economy while maintaining reasonable growth.

 

To achieve reasonable growth, the Government figured out a number of measures to ease difficulties against businesses, boost production and export of staples like rice, aquatic products, garments and focus on reducing high inventory, particularly of construction materials and supporting the real estate market.

 

Economic restructuring, the Government chief reasserted, would be promoted through restructuring public investment, State-owned enterprises and the banking system. Clearing bad debts and settling poor banks are top priorities in the process of banking restructuring, he stressed.