Vietnam's Inflation Forecast at 7.7 per cent This Year: Standard Chartered

Vietnam’s inflation rate may fall in 2007, but remains high at 7.7 per cent in 2006, experts from the British Standard Chartered Bank has predicted.

 

Vietnam will be one of the fattest growing economies in the Pacific-Asia in coming years, but it will also face with high inflation rate, the bank said.

 

Standard Chartered also forecast that Vietnam would obtain economic growth at as high as 8.2 per cent this year and at 8.8 per cent in next year, given that the country could further penetrate into the international markets and its tariffs and quotas would be cut in accordance with the roadmap to join the WTO.

 

The British bank said that Vietnam’s economic reform policies are going on the right track. Therefore, the credit ratings provider Standard & Poor's recently upgraded Vietnam's foreign currency rating to BB from BB-.

 

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has also projected that Vietnam would face an inflation rate of 8.3 per cent in 2006 and 7.8 per cent in 2007.

 

The Vietnamese government has set target to curb the inflation rate at 6-7 per cent this year. It expanded by 4.8 per cent in first eight months.