Vietnam's GDP growth rate in 2016 could reach 6.82 percent, according to the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM).
Nguyen Dinh Cung, head of CIEM, predicted the growth rate. This prediction is higher than set goal of 6.7 percent by the National Assembly. He went on to say that inflation rate would be kept to just 4.7 percent while export growth rate would be 10.4 percent.
According to Cung, the world economy will have a good effect on Vietnam. Falling fuel prices will lower the prices of input materials and export industry will see great growth thanks to free trade agreements.
Truong Dinh Tuyen, former head of Ministry of Industry and Trade, thought that there were problems to face such as bad debts. FDI companies also contributed 70 percent of the country's total exports and were also one of the factors that has contributed to the trade deficit, due to high level imports of inputs, he said. Meanwhile, the restructuring of state-owned companies has proceeded slowly.
Pham Chi Lan, a member of the Advisory Group of the Vietnam National Assembly’s Economic Commission, expressed worries about bribery and lack of support from government.
Vietnam achieved GDP growth of 6.68 percent last year, also higher than the National Assembly’s goal of 6.2 percent because of more stable interest rates and stricter scrutiny of public investments. Vietnam improved its ranking 12 places, to 56 out of 140 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index.
