Vietnam’s 2017 Economic Growth Likely to Beat 6.7% Target: Commission

Vietnam's economy is heading to reach the full-year growth target of 6.7%.

Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) will probably hit or even exceed the government’s target of 6.7% this year, the National Financial Supervisory Commission (NFSC) has said in an update, following better-than-expected data in the third quarter.

The country’s economic growth accelerated to 7.46% in the quarter this year, bringing the growth rate to 6.41% in the nine months through September, far above the 6.1% surveyed by Bloomberg.

In the final quarter of this year, aggregate demand will increase given faster disbursement of capital for infrastructure development. In addition, exports will likely see better performance, thanks to world economic conditions as well as global trade growth, NFSC said in the report.

“Following the strong momentum in the second and third quarters, the commission expects the fourth quarter growth at 7.5%-7.7%. The whole-year GDP expansion could surpass 6.7%,” the commission, which is the government’s financial watchdog, noted.

The commission also forecast inflation to reach 3% this year, below the government’s target of 4%, if there are no sudden changes to the base scenario.

The commission calculated that every increase of 25% in prices of centrally-administered services will add one percentage point to inflation.

Meanwhile, if the Vietnamese dong weakens by 1% against the U.S. dollar, inflation will speed up by 0.17 percentage point. In case electricity prices go up by 8-10%, inflation will grow an additional 0.3-0.4 percentage points, it added.

Tuan Minh / BizLIVE