HANOI, June 16 (Reuters): Vietnam will strive to quicken its economic growth in 2015 to between 6.0-6.2 per cent by improving competitiveness, expanding trade and investment ties while avoiding reliance on any single market, the government said.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in a directive to government agencies issued late on Sunday that Vietnam aims to maintain macro-economic stability, speed up structural reforms and control inflation.
The government for the first time highlighted the need to "avoid relying on any single market". It did not name a particular country, but local economists and businesses have been vocal in calls for Vietnam to wean itself off of China, with which it shared $50 billion of trade in 2013.
Growth of 6.0-6.2 per cent for 2015 is ambitious when compared with forecasts by international financial institutions. The ADB sees 5.8 per cent expansion in 2015, while the World Bank last week forecast 5.6 per cent growth for Vietnam, the same rate as Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy.
Vietnam has targeted gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year of 5.8 per cent, up from 5.42 per cent in 2013.
The World bank and ADB both cite the need for more rigorous action in reforming Vietnam's inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and tackling high levels of bad debt in the banking system.
Dung said Vietnam would speed up banking and SOE reforms in 2015, with focus on the settlement of toxic debt while keeping stable the value of the Vietnamese dong currency and increasing foreign reserves, according to the directive seen by Reuters.
Vietnam needs to keep inflation next year at 7 per cent. It is aiming for annual inflation in 2014 at between 6.0-7.0 per cent, against 6.6 per cent last year.
"Inflation is forecast to remain relatively subdued," ADB said in its 2014 report in April. "A return to the faster economic growth of previous years is hampered by the cautious pace of reform to banks and state enterprises."
Tensions at sea between Vietnam and China have been simmering since a $1 billion Chinese oil rig was towed into disputed waters in early May. The rig's deployment triggered anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam last month that killed at least four workers, according to official figures.
