Vietnam aims to limit 2008 inflation at 25%
08-SEP-2008 Intellasia | Reuters
Sep 8, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
|
Vietnam, which has been grappling with soaring inflation, aims to limit the rise in consumer prices for the whole year to 25%, the government said.
Consumer prices in the Southeast Asian country of 86.5 million people, jumped 28.3% last month from a year ago, mainly due to a spike in food and fuel prices.
"Our objective is to unite our force and mind to strive to achieve a growth of 7% and inflation at 25%," prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung told a cabinet meeting in Hanoi this week.
"The policy of tightening credit must be continued, but with flexibility in order to accommodate businesses," a government report seen Friday quoted Dung as saying.
Dung asked the government to keep the monthly trade deficit -due mainly to high oil prices as the country relies on refined product imports -to under US$1 billion between now and the end of the year to bring annual trade gap this year to under US$20 billion.
The Communist Party government is facing its biggest economic test since market liberalisation began in earnest in the mid-1990s.
It has cut growth targets to 6.5%-7% from around 8% previously and raised interest rates three times this year to fight double-digit inflation.
In July the Asian Development Bank revised Vietnam's annual inflation this year up to 19.4%, from 18.3% previously estimated.
|
| |
|  |
|
Advertising
