Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has urged ministries, agencies and localities to concentrate resources on economic recovery, with the aim of obtaining a higher GDP growth rate, at 6.5 percent, than that of 2009, and ensuring rapid and sustainable development in the coming years.

Concluding the Government’s two-day regular session on Oct. 1, the PM laid stress on the tasks needed to prevent economic slowdown, maintain a rational economic growth rate, stabilise the macro-economy, and ward off the return of inflation.

“We must maximize the exploitation of our domestic strengths and potentials,” he said. “Ministries, agencies and localities have to accelerate the rate of disbursement for projects, especially key national projects, for the sake of production and the improvement of people’s life.”

The PM asked the State Bank of Vietnam to work with relevant ministries on the implementation of stimulus packages for 2010 to submit to the PM for consideration in the first half of November.

Assessing the first nine months’ economic situation, the cabinet agreed that Vietnam ’s economy was directly affected by the global financial crisis but did not suffer as badly from the recession as other countries.

The economy, since the beginning of the year, has been on a trend of remarkable recovery with the GDP growth rate reaching 4.56 percent overall, and 5.76 percent for the third quarter alone.

The industrial production value was 63.2 trillion VND for September, up 13.8 percent over the same month last year.

The agro-forestry-fisheries production value hit 150.5 trillion VND, up 2.6 percent over the same period last year.

However, the economy in the past nine months has faced difficulties, including lower growth rates for major economic sectors against last year, and a sharp drop in export turnover, mainly due to falling prices.

The economic slowdown also caused difficulties in mobilising investment capital, particularly FDI capital, generating jobs and exporting labour.

The government estimates the GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter will be 6.8 percent and the rate for the whole year will top out at 5.2 percent./.