Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to increase by 7.2-7.3 per cent in the first quarter of this year, lower than the rate of 7.4 per cent of the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI).
The forecast was released during a seminar on the conditions of production, trading, service and investment in the last three months opened last weekend.
Cao Viet Sinh, MPI deputy minister, said that the lower GDP growth would be the result of high market prices and difficulties in export markets that foreign-invested companies were facing.
Both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City economic hubs will also follow the trend, he added.
The industrial production value, which is estimated to rise by 14.7 per cent in the quarter, compared with the targeted 15.5 per cent, indicates that production, service and investment will not perform as well as in the year earlier.
Export turnover is forecast to climb up by 20 per cent in January-March, and the average value is about $2.85 billion per month, but it is still lower than the projection of $3.15 billion per month.
Meanwhile, the consumer price index (CPI), which is already reported up by only 2.8 per cent in first three months, is also warned not to be sustainable.
Huynh Dac Thang, deputy head of the Department of Planning and Investment, under the Ministry of Industry, said that the CPI would likely go up amid the Government planed to hike prices of power and other input materials.
The economic growth rate of 7.3 per cent in the first quarter is lower than the annual growth of 8 per cent set for this year.
In related news, the Ho Chi Minh City posted its GDP reaching VND36.77 trillion ($2.33 billion) in the first quarter, up 9.5 per cent from the same period last year.
Investment, Labour
Vietnamese
