Vietnam eyes tough road to fulfil 2017’s GDP growth target

To reach the set GDP growth of 6.7% in 2017 and curb inflation rate at 4%, the Vietnamese economy must post a growth rate of over 7% for the rest of the year, he said at a seminar in Ho Chi Minh City on May 15 to review the Vietnamese economy’s performance in the first four months of 2017. Regarding strategy for boosting GDP growth, some experts said that in the short term, Vietnam should pump more oil and money to the economy through increasing natural resources exploitation for export or providing more currency to the economy.

However, they said that the solutions has modest effectiveness and maintain risks of harming the economy as well as macro-economic instability.

At the same time, representatives of some businesses held that the low GDP growth in the first four months of this year showed the country’s weakness in competitiveness and poor performance of key sectors of the economy.

According to the Government’s socio-economic report for April, the macro-economy remained stable with many bright spots such as standstill consumer price index, the continued recovery of sectors, and 7.4% growth in industrial production, higher than 4.2% in the first quarter.

Besides, export continued to grow 15.4%, focusing on the export of processed products and farm produces, said the report, adding that the country attracted US$10.6 billion in FDI, a rise of 40.5%. Newly-established firms also surged to 40,000 with total investment of VND825 trillion, it said.