Vietnam sees 2010 GDP growth at 6.5-7%

Vietnam expects economic growth to pick up from next year, the government said.

"The main task for 2010's socio-economic development plan is to try to achieve a GDP growth of 6.5-7 percent," the government said in a statement seen on Tuesday.

Late last month, the government proposed to parliament that the gross domestic product target for this year be lowered to about 5 percent, although many economists say even that will be a difficult mark to hit as the global economic recession pushed the Southeast Asian country's first quarter GDP growth to its lowest level in years.

Last year, GDP growth was 6.2 percent and in 2007 it was 8.5 percent.

Last week government also set an economic growth target of between 7 and 8 percent a year in the 2011-2015 period, lowering by half a percentage point the floor of the range as compared with its target for the previous five years.

Vietnam's economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5 percent between 1996 and 2005, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The government target for gross domestic product growth in the five years from 2006 to 1010 was 7.5 percent to 8 percent.

Vietnews, Reuters

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