Vietnam hikes 2016 growth forecast to 7%

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Agriculture_in_Vietnam_with_farmersVietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has urged his Cabinet members to take action to lift the country’s economic growth target for 2016 from the legislature’s earlier forecast, as he noted that “the country has made progresses in all fields” despite the lackluster global economy.

Dung in a recent meeting with the Cabinet said the national economy in 2015 had grown 6.68%, higher than the previous forecast even with complications in the global and regional economies and the declining oil prices. Hence, he proposed raising the growth target for 2016 from 6.7% to around 7%.

In the first two months of 2016, Vietnam has posted a trade surplus of US$865 million, said the General Statistics Office (GSO).

According to the prime minister, despite the long New Year holidays, the country’s socioeconomic performance attained positive outcomes in every area, especially in economic growth and services, said a report by the state-run VGP News.

Dung suggested that ministries, agencies, and localities focus on improving the investment environment and speeding up institutional reforms to make full use of signed free trade agreements to attract more investments.

The state leader also asked them to finalize national key construction projects, especially expressways and airports.

Meanwhile, the GSO said that for the period January to February of this year, Vietnam posted an export turnover of $23.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2.9%.

Key export commodities contributing higher revenues included telephones and spare parts with $4.3 billion (up 2.5%); garments and textiles with $3.6 billion (up 12.4%); and electronics, computers and spare parts with $2.4 billion (up 6.2%).

The U.S. was the biggest importer of  Vietnamese commodities, with $5.1 billion (up 15.5% against the same period last year); followed by the EU with $4.7 billion (up 6.4%); ASEAN with $2.5 billion (down 12.3%); and China with $2.3 billion (up 3.5%).

On import turnover in the past two months, this was valued at $22.8 billion, a decrease of 6.6% from the same period in 2015.

Almost all import markets showed declines, with China taking the lead with $7 billion (down 5.6% against the same period last year); followed by South Korea with $3.9 billion (down 4.8%); and ASEAN with $3.2 billion (down 7.6%).

During the two-month period, foreign investors poured more than $2.8 billion into Vietnam, an increase of 135% year-on-year.

Some 13,904 new local enterprises were registered during the two-month period with total registered capital of VND113 trillion (nearly $5.1 billion), up 1% in number of enterprises and 45.8% in registered capital year-on-year.

The average registered capital was VND8.1 billion per enterprise, up 44.4% year-on-year, said GSO.