Economy may grow 5.2 percent this year, central banker says

Vietnam’s gross domestic product may expand between 5 percent and 5.2 percent this year as stimulus packages have helped boost the country’s economy, State Bank Governor Nguyen Van Giau said.

The economy began to grow in March after four months of applying different economic packages, Giau said in a statement posted on the central bank’s website. In addition, Vietnamese banks have had “remarkable earnings,” he told Sweden’s Riksbank Governor Stefan Ingves in a meeting in Hanoi on Monday, according to the statement.

The economy grew 3.9 percent in the first half from a year earlier, the Hanoi-based General Statistics Office said on July 1. The economy expanded 4.5 percent in the second quarter, up from 3.1 percent in the first, the office said.

On July 7, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung called on the country’s ministries and companies to try to top a 5 percent growth target that had been revised down earlier this year from an initial goal of 6.5 percent.

Vietnam plans a stimulus spending of about US$8 billion to bolster growth, the Prime Minister told investors in Hong Kong in April.

thanhnien, bloomberg

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