Vietnam’s economy grew more than 6 percent in the first eight months of 2010 from a year earlier, Minister of Trade and Industry Vu Huy Hoang said.
The economy expanded 6.2 percent in the first half and the government’s full-year target is 6.5 percent. The Vietnamese economy grew 5.3 percent last year, the slowest pace since 1999.
“In the first eight months of the year, the Vietnamese economy has recorded encouraging results,” Hoang told journalists Wednesday in the central city of Da Nang, where ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations are meeting. “GDP growth is over 6 percent.”
Hoang also cited a “decrease in the trade deficit,” without being more specific. Vietnam’s trade gap narrowed to $900 million in August from a revised $978 million in July, the General Statistics Office in Hanoi said Tuesday.