As ASEAN Chair in 2010, Vietnam has selected the theme “Towards the ASEAN Community: From Vision to Action” as its guideline throughout the year, said Mr Dung.

Vietnam will focus on implementing the ASEAN Charter and building an ASEAN Community. It will help enhance international cooperation to ride out the global economic storm and expand ASEAN partnership by boosting the regional grouping’s role in addressing global issues.

Mr Dung called for a joint effort to develop an ASEAN of peace, stability and development in the region and the world at large.

Talking about Vietnam’s economy, he noted that despite the global financial and economic turmoil in 2009, Vietnam was one of few countries that recorded rather high growth rates in 2009, standing at 5.32 percent.

The country reduced its poverty rate to 12 percent, maintained social security, expanded international relations and integrated deeper into the world.

To become an industrial nation by 2020, Mr Dung said, Vietnam is regulating its market economy and creating an equitable competitive environment for all economic sectors, increasing the efficiency of economic integration globally and pooling all resources available to upgrade and build modern infrastructure.

Vietnam will also develop its high-quality human resources, boost the application of sci-tech advances, accelerate administrative reform, restructure the economy, pay more attention to environmental protection and effectively cope with climate change.

in response to a query from foreign reporters about Vietnam’s 2010 economic growth, Mr Dung forecast that the GDP would hover around 7 percent and increase to 7-8 percent in 2011-12.

He also affirmed that Vietnam will keep an inflation rate of around 7 percent this year by using effective financial tools as applied in 2009.