VINACHEM

Facing many difficulties, Vietnam still saw signs of economic recovery with a GDP growth in the first half of this year reaching 5.18 percent, said Nguyen Bich Lam, Director-General of the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO).

GDP in the first quarter rose 5.09 percent year-on-year, while that of the second quarter was 5.25 percent, noted Lam at a press conference in Hanoi on June 27 to update socio-economic statistics in the first six months of this year.

Service sector’s proportion in the economic structure was 43.61 percent, while industry-construction accounted for 38.7 percent and agro-forestry-fisheries sector made up 17.69 percent, he revealed.

Lam commented that positive changes of the economy were reflected in progress of enterprises’ capacity. Industrial production in the first half of 2014 rose 5.8 percent year-on-year, while export is another bright spot of the economy with 70.9 billion USD in total revenue, up by 14.9 percent, he said.

Sharing Lam’s opinion, Ha Quang Tuyen, Director of the GSO’s System of National Accounts Department, pointed out that the property market was also thriving with a 2.65 percent growth, higher than the 1.8 percent in the same period last year.

He attributed the results to the loosening bank interest rate and the government’s effective support policy for the sector.

Both Lam and Tuyen were optimistic with the predicted 2014 GDP growth of 5.8 percent despite impact of the East Sea tension, caused by China’s illegal placement of its oil rig deep inside Vietnam’s waters in early May.