Vietnam Strives To Achieve 7 Pct Economic Growth In 2016

HANOI, Feb. 29 (Xinhua) -- Vietnamese Prime Minister (PM) Nguyen Tan Dung on Monday suggested cabinet members to take efforts so as to lift the country's economic growth target from 6.7 percent to around 7 percent in 2016.

Chairing the regular cabinet meeting in Vietnam's capital Hanoi on Monday, the PM said "the country has made progresses in all fields".

According to the General Statistics Office, in the first two months of 2016, Vietnam is estimated to post a trade surplus of 865 million U.S. dollars.

During the two-month period, export turnover valued at 23.663 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 2.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the import turnover stayed at 22.798 billion U.S. dollars, a decrease of 6.6 percent over the same period in 2015.

During the two-month period, foreign investors registered to pour more than 2.8 billion U.S. dollars in Vietnam, an increase of 135 percent year-on-year.

As many as 13,904 local enterprises were registered for establishment during the two-month period with total registered capital of 113 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly 5.1 billion U.S. dollars), up one percent in terms of number of enterprises and 45.8 percent in registered capital year-on-year.

The average registered capital stays at 8.1 billion Vietnamese dong (around 363,000 U.S. dollars) per one enterprise, up 44.4 percent year-on-year.

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, foreign arrivals to Vietnam in the first two months of 2016 are estimated to increase by 16 percent year-on-year.

Markets with high growth of foreign visitors to Vietnam included China's Hong Kong (up 169.9 percent), China (up 48.8 percent), the Republic of Korea (up 31 percent), and Italy (up 25.6 percent), among others.

However, besides the achievements, severe cold weather in early February caused serious damages to plants and livestock in Vietnamese northern localities, saline intrusion happened in a vast area in the southern Mekong Delta, while droughts occurred in the country's south and Central Highlands. In addition, fatality of traffic accidents still remain high, assessed the government.

Vietnam achieved economic growth of 6.68 percent in 2015. The country's legislature earlier passed an economic growth target of 6.7 percent for the year 2016.

Khoa Le

Source: Shanghaidaily.com